Stigma as a fundamental hindrance to the United States opioid overdose crisis response

Alexander C Tsai; Mathew V Kiang; Michael L Barnett; Leo Beletsky; Katherine M Keyes; Emma E McGinty; Laramie R Smith; Steffanie A Strathdee; Sarah E Wakeman; Atheendar S Venkataramani

doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1002969

Stigma as a fundamental hindrance to the United States opioid overdose crisis response

PLoS Med. 2019 Nov 26;16(11):e1002969. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1002969. eCollection 2019 Nov.

Authors

Alexander C Tsai^{1

2

3}, Mathew V Kiang⁴, Michael L Barnett^{2

5

6}, Leo Beletsky^{7

8

9}, Katherine M Keyes¹⁰, Emma E McGinty¹¹, Laramie R Smith⁹, Steffanie A Strathdee⁹, Sarah E Wakeman^{2

12}, Atheendar S Venkataramani^{13

14}

Affiliations

¹ Center for Global Health, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
² Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
³ Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Mbarara, Uganda.
⁴ Center for Population Health Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, United States of America.
⁵ Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
⁶ Division of General Internal Medicine and Primary Care, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
⁷ Northeastern University School of Law, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
⁸ Bouvé College of Health Sciences, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
⁹ Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health, University of California at San Diego School of Medicine, San Diego, California, United States of America.
¹⁰ Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York City, New York, United States of America.
¹¹ Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America.
¹² Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
¹³ Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
¹⁴ Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America.

Abstract

Alexander Tsai and co-authors discuss the role of stigma in responses to the US opioid crisis.

MeSH terms

Analgesics, Opioid / therapeutic use
Drug Overdose / epidemiology
Drug Overdose / psychology*
Drug Overdose / therapy
Humans
Opioid-Related Disorders / epidemiology
Opioid-Related Disorders / psychology*
Opioid-Related Disorders / therapy
Social Stigma*
United States / epidemiology

Substances

Analgesics, Opioid

Grants and funding

The authors received no specific funding for this work.