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Dec. 15, 2023 – Overall, stigma research has focused primarily on mental health problems, the authors wrote. But studies indicate that SUD is typically more stigmatized than mental illness, in part because substance use is viewed as more controllable. Studies of public stigma indicate that Americans express concerns about interacting with substance users, although that resistance ebbs toward individuals described as being in active recovery.

Studies also show variability in stigma among different types of substance dependence. For example, individuals who abuse illegal drugs such as heroin are perceived as more dangerous than those who abuse alcohol or prescription opioids.

The consequences of public stigma, along with structural and self-stigma, discourage individuals with SUD from seeking and persisting with treatment, research suggests.

Some studies have identified strategies aimed at reducing stigma, such as education designed to counter inaccurate beliefs, but those approaches have shown limited progress. This calls for researchers to develop stronger methods for reducing stigma. Strategies may include emphasizing an individual’s recovery and the reduction of structural treatment barriers, such as inadequate insurance coverage and lack of access to evidence-based interventions.

In a commentary accompanying the report, APS James McKeen Cattell Fellow Stephen P. Hinshaw, a distinguished professor at University of California, Berkeley and University of California, San Francisco, points to successful treatments as possibly the “ultimate game-changer” in stigma reduction. Hinshaw, whose work focuses on developmental psychopathology and mental illness stigma, notes that HIV/AIDS received massive stigma before antiretroviral therapies transformed it from a terminal to survivable condition.

READ@Newswise