Treatment centers with low adoption of buprenorphine, methadone, and naltrexone are often led by individuals who endorse stigmatizing beliefs toward MOUD

In 2022, I co-authored a manuscript with faculty from the Perelamn School of Medicine (Drs. Rebecca Stewart, David Mandell, Steven Marcus, Kyle Kampman, Christoper Tjoa), the University of Kentucky School of Medicine (Dr. Hannah Knudsen), and the preceding research coordinator for the study (Nayoung Kwon) on stigma toward medications for opioid use disorder.

TL;DR: Leaders of organizations that did not frequently treat their opioid use disorder patients with buprenorphine, methadone, or naltrexone, were more likely to endorse stigmatizing barriers as a reason for not implementing these medications (relative to leaders of high adopting agencies). That is, they were more likely to rate barriers like, “buprenorphine is like substituting one drug for another” as an inhibitor to implementation

Link to publication in the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment(Continued as Journal of Substance Use and Addiction Treatment)

Rebecca Stewart and I have presented these results as a poster at the 2021 Addiction Health Services Research Virtual Conference

Press release from the Penn Leonard David Institute on our publication