Brief Report: Naloxone Decline Among African American Kentuckians

Abstract

Background:

Opioid-involved overdose fatalities among African Americans continue to rise. The current study examines African Americans who reported use of opioids in the past 6 months and declined overdose education and free naloxone.

Method:

Eligible participants included African American Kentuckians who used opioids in the past 6 months and consented to a larger study examining their opioid use. This paper qualitatively explored their reasons for declining overdose education and naloxone using an adjusted and inductive application of structural tabular thematic analysis.

Results:

Out of 588 participants, 70 (12%) declined naloxone: the most cited reason for declining naloxone was already possessing the medication. Additional reasons range from not needing or wanting naloxone to no longer using opioids.

Conclusions:

The findings suggest that African Americans’ hesitancy to carry naloxone can be due to pervasive structural issues. Despite these findings, there remain disproportionate drug treatment rates and mortality from overdose among African Americans.