The study shows the impact of providing new treatment services to rural areas with limited healthcare infrastructures and transportation hurdles.
While mobile methadone units help to increase
methadone use among patients with opioid addictions,
a study suggested that they will have the greatest benefit in rural areas.
The study, published in Health Services Research,
examined the impact of providing new treatment services to rural areas, where,
as in many other remote areas of the country, there are limited healthcare infrastructures and transportation hurdles.
They contrasted this data to the impact of expanding
units statewide, where people have greater access to traditional healthcare
facilities.
The research team employed predictive modelling
techniques to anticipate new methadone usage following a potential increase in
mobile methadone in the state. They looked at examples where mobile methadone
operators could choose their sites and others where they were limited to
service rural areas to uncover potential regional disparities in their
effectiveness.
"Several interconnected factors play a role in
the prevalence of opioid use disorders in rural areas and this includes limited
access to healthcare services, which is why we wanted to compare this data to
help with decision-making when allocating resources to combat this public
health crisis," said first author Jason Gibbons, PhD, assistant professor
and a health economist in the Colorado School of Public Health at the University
of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.
The research finds that adding ten units exclusively
to rural Louisiana was associated with a 13 percentage point increase in
Medication for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD) treatment rates in rural zip codes.
Adding the same number of units across the state, not
exclusively in rural areas, was predicted to increase MOUD treatment rates in
Louisiana by up to nearly three percentage points.
"We find significant geographic variation in the
impact of mobile methadone implementation, which means careful location
planning will be required to maximize their benefit in other communities,"
Gibbons said. (ANI)
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