Interdisciplinary Treatment of Drug Misuse among Older People of Color: Ethnic Considerations for Social Work Practice

Abstract

Drug misuse involves the interaction of individual, physician, pharmacist and the drugs themselves; when ethnicity is included in this definition, information about the cultural heritage of the individual and what health and illness mean within that culture for that particular individual must be included to fully understand their drug-taking behavior. A model of interdisciplinary treatment of drug misuse for practitioners, who work primarily with noninstitutionalized older persons of color is presented. Being ethnically sensitive to individual differences is a first step in treating the older minority persons' drug misuse; with this sensitivity comes the knowledge of what objective differences are most important to consider in preventing drug misuse among all people, particularly older people of color.