Mobile methadone units effective in rural areas: study

The study, published in Health Services Research, examined the impact of providing new treatment services in rural areas, where, like many other remote areas of the country, there is limited health care infrastructure and transportation barriers.

He compared this data to the impact of increasing units across the state, where people have more access to traditional health facilities.

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The research team used predictive modeling techniques to estimate new methadone use following a potential increase in mobile methadone in the state. They looked at examples where mobile methadone operators could choose their own sites and others where they were limited to serving rural areas, highlighting potential regional disparities in their effectiveness.

“Multiple interconnected factors play a role in the prevalence of opioid use disorders in rural areas and include limited access to health services, which is why we need this information to help guide decisions when allocating resources to combat this public health crisis.” “We wanted to compare this data to the U.S.,” said first author Jason Gibbons, PhD, assistant professor and a health economist at the Colorado School of Public Health at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

The research found that in rural Louisiana specifically, adding ten units increased Medication for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD) treatment rates in rural ZIP codes by 13 percentage points.

Adding the same number of units throughout the state, especially not in rural areas, was predicted to increase MOUD treatment rates in Louisiana by about three percentage points.

“We find significant geographic variation in the impact of mobile methadone implementation, meaning that maximizing their benefits in other communities will require careful location planning,” Gibbons said. (ANI)