A National Portrait of Public Attitudes toward Opioid Use in the US: A Latent Class Analysis

Suzan M. Walters (), Weiwei Liu, Phoebe Lamuda, Jimi Huh, Russell Brewer, O’Dell Johnson, Ricky N. Bluthenthal, Bruce Taylor and John A. Schneider
Additional contact information
Suzan M. Walters: Department of Epidemiology, School of Global Public Health, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA
Weiwei Liu: Public Health Department, NORC at the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60603, USA
Phoebe Lamuda: Public Health Department, NORC at the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60603, USA
Jimi Huh: Department of Population and Public Health Sciences, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA
Russell Brewer: Department of Medicine, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
O’Dell Johnson: Southern Public Health and Criminal Justice Research Center, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR 72205, USA
Ricky N. Bluthenthal: Department of Population and Public Health Sciences, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA
Bruce Taylor: Public Health Department, NORC at the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60603, USA
John A. Schneider: Public Health Department, NORC at the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60603, USA

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 5, 1-16

Abstract: Background: Opioid overdose rates have steadily been increasing in the United States (US) creating what is considered an overdose death crisis. The US has a mixture of public health and punitive policies aimed to address opioid use and the overdose crisis, yet little is known about public opinion relating to opioid use and policy support. Understanding the intersection of public opinion about opioid use disorder (OUD) and policy can be useful for developing interventions to address policy responses to overdose deaths. Methods: A national sample of cross-sectional data from the AmeriSpeak survey conducted from 27 February 2020 through 2 March 2020 was analyzed. Measures included attitudes toward OUD and policy beliefs. Latent class analysis, a person-centered approach, was used to identify groups of individuals endorsing similar stigma and policy beliefs. We then examined the relationship between the identified groups (i.e., classes) and key behavioral and demographic factors. Results: We identified three distinct groups: (1) “High Stigma/High Punitive Policy”, (2) “High Stigma/Mixed Public Health and Punitive Policy”, and (3) “Low Stigma/High Public Health Policy”. People with higher levels of education had reduced odds of being in the “High Stigma/High Punitive Policy” group. Conclusion: Public health policies are most effective in addressing OUD. We suggest targeting interventions toward the “High Stigma/Mixed Public Health and Punitive Policy” group since this group already displays some support for public health policies. Broader interventions, such as eliminating stigmatizing messaging in the media and redacting punitive policies, could reduce OUD stigma among all groups.

Keywords: public opinion; opioid use disorder; stigma; policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/5/4455/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/5/4455/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:5:p:4455-:d:1085604

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().