Reducing Opioid Use Disorder Health Inequities Within Latino Communities in South Texas
Gandara, E., Recto, P., Zapata, J., Jr, Moreno-Vasquez, A., Idar, A. Z., Castilla, M., Hernández, L., Flores, M., Escareño, J., Castillo, C., Morales, V., Medellin, H., Vega, B., Hoffman, B., González, M., & Lesser, J. (2022). Reducing opioid use disorder health inequities within Latino communities in South Texas. Public health nursing, 40(1), 163-166. https://doi.org/10.1111/phn.13124
Abstract
Substance use disorders (SUDs), like opioid use disorder (OUD) have had a significant impact on communities across the U.S. In 2018, an estimated two million people were reported to have an opioid use disorder in the U.S. Within the State of Texas, opioid-involved overdose deaths totaled 1402 in 2019, with Latinos making up 25% of opioid overdose-related deaths. Within the literature, several sociocultural factors have been associated with limited access to services for opioid misuse within the Latino community. Language barriers are often one of the largest issues related to prevention, treatment, and recovery strategies for Latinos regarding the opioid crisis; demonstrating the need for more bilingual providers and program materials available in participants' native language. Within the literature, Community Health Workers (CHWs) have been shown to be effective across multiple settings and health issues. In order to tackle OUD in South Texas, the ST-AHEC team decided to adopt an existing OUD program for CHWs, the CHW-OUD Project ECHO Program developed by UNM. In order to translate our English CHW-OUD ECHO program into Spanish, a Spanish-language CHW-OUD workgroup was created that was made up predominantly of CHWs. This workgroup used a participatory approach to translate our existing English CHW-OUD Project ECHO curriculum into Spanish. This Spanish language CHW-OUD ECHO program that was developed is important as it targets many of the socio-cultural barriers noted in the literature that influence access to opioid services for Latinos. In addition, it meets the community-informed strategies that SAMHSA has stated are needed to address opioid misuse in Latino communities.