Minorities and Addiction Treatment Completion
March 23, 2008
A recent study showed that ethnic minorities may be less likely to finish a treatment program for alcohol addiction. Information about over ten thousand patients in addiction treatment centers of an urban county in California was analyzed for this research. The rehab facilities were all publicly funded. The individuals included 4141 African Americans, 3120 Hispanic people, and 3330 whites.
The researchers set out to determine whether there was a difference in the rate of finishing treatment for three racial groups in residential and outpatient programs. They found that the percentage of people who completed addiction treatment was low for all groups, but African Americans had the lowest rate of the three.
African Americans are already less likely than Caucasians to enter into rehab programs in the first place. They are also more likely to choose outpatient rather than residential treatment centers, which are generally less effective in preventing relapse among people with alcoholism. It is believed that they chose outpatient rehab more often because they are unable to go into residential treatment for various reasons.
For residential rehab centers, 46 percent of whites, 43 percent of Hispanics, and 31 percent of African Americans finished. In outpatient rehab programs, 30 percent of Hispanics, 27 percent of whites, and only 18 percent of African Americans followed through until the end.
The results of this information show that efforts should be made to help people of all racial and ethnic groups finish addiction treatment programs for alcoholism. However, special attention may need to be focused on the African American population. Completion is one of the factors that indicate how likely the individual is to be successful over the long term in their addiction recovery efforts. Those who don’t finish obviously receive less counseling, less support, and fewer coping skills for dealing with alcoholism.
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