Disparities in health services for addiction-related infections in substance abuse treatment programs

Background: The availability of infection-related health services in treatment programs serving women and non-white populations has not been investigated despite the proven infection-related benefits of substance abuse treatment. We investigated the differences in availability of infection-related services between programs with and without addiction services tailored for women and non-white populations. Methods: In a cross-sectional, descriptive design, administrators from 269 treatment programs within the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network provided program characteristics, availability of 21 infection-related services, and presence or absence of 8 barriers to providing these services. Results: Compared to treatment programs without addiction services tailored for any special population, treatment programs providing addiction services designed for at least one special population were more likely to provide HIV-related education (94% versus 85%, p = 0.05) and patient counseling (76% versus 60%, p = 0.03), and were more likely to include outpatient addiction services (86% versus 57%, p<0.001) and outreach and support services (92% versus 70%, p=0.01) despite funding, health insurance, and patient acceptance barriers. Conclusions: Tailoring addiction treatment and reducing barriers to infection-related health care provide opportunities to reduce the burdens and disparities associated with these infections.