State Medicaid Policies Governing Access to Medications for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD) and MOUD Treatment Use in a Large Sample of People Who Inject Drugs in 20 U.S. States.

Background: People who inject drugs (PWID) are especially vulnerable to harms from opioid use disorder (OUD). Medications for OUD (MOUD) effectively reduce overdose and infectious disease transmission risks.

Objective: We investigate whether state Medicaid coverage for methadone and buprenorphine is related to past-year MOUD use among PWID using cross-sectional, multilevel analyses with individual-level data on PWID from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 2018 National HIV Behavioral Surveillance.

Mapping gentrification, segregation, rental cost burden and sexually transmitted infections in Atlanta, Georgia, 2005-2018.

Racial disparities in sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the United States have been linked to social inequities. Gentrification instigates population-level shifts in housing markets and neighborhood racial/ethnic composition in ways that may impact the spatial distribution of STIs. This study assessed overlap in clusters of STIs, gentrification, social and economic disadvantage, and rental cost burden in Atlanta, Georgia, between 2005 and 2018.

Enhanced Cohort Methods for HIV Research and Epidemiology (ENCORE): Protocol for a Nationwide Hybrid Cohort for Transgender Women in the United States.

Background: In the United States, transgender women are disproportionately impacted by HIV and prioritized in the national strategy to end the epidemic. Individual, interpersonal, and structural vulnerabilities underlie HIV acquisition among transgender women and fuel syndemic conditions, yet no nationwide cohort monitors their HIV and other health outcomes.

Objective: Our objective is to develop a nationwide cohort to estimate HIV incidence, identify risk factors, and investigate syndemic conditions co-occurring with HIV vulnerability or acquisition among US transgender women.

Association of economic and racial segregation with restricted buprenorphine dispensing in U.S. community pharmacies.

Background: Timely and reliable dispensing of buprenorphine is critical to accessing treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD). Racial and ethnic inequities in OUD treatment access are well described, but it remains unclear if inequities persist at the point of dispensing.

Methods: We analyzed data from a U.

Medical Debt and the Mental Health Treatment Gap Among US Adults.

Importance: Medical debt is common in the US and may hinder timely access to care for mental disorders.

Objective: To estimate the prevalence of medical debt among US adults with depression and anxiety and its association with delayed and forgone mental health care.

Design, Setting, And Participants: Cross-sectional, nationally representative survey study of US adult participants in the 2022 National Health Interview Survey who had current or lifetime diagnoses of depression or anxiety.

Housing insecurity among black women surviving intimate partner violence during the COVID-19 pandemic: an intersectional qualitative approach.

Background: Housing instability is highly prevalent among intimate partner violence (IPV) survivors, and the coupling consequences of structural racism, sexism, classism, and the COVID-19 pandemic, may create more barriers to safe and adequate housing, specifically for Black women IPV survivors. In particular, the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic had the potential to amplify disadvantages for Black women IPV survivors, yet very little research has acknowledged it. Therefore, the current study sought to assess the experiences of housing insecurity among Black women experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV) while navigating racism, sexism, and classism during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Estimation of place-based vulnerability scores for HIV viral non-suppression: an application leveraging data from a cohort of people with histories of using drugs.

The relationships between place (e.g., neighborhood) and HIV are commonly investigated.

Association of Medicaid expansion with health insurance, unmet need for medical care and substance use disorder treatment among people who inject drugs in 13 US states.

Background And Aims: Impoverished people who inject drugs (PWID) are at the epicenter of US drug-related epidemics. Medicaid expansion is designed to reduce cost-related barriers to care by expanding Medicaid coverage to all US adults living at or below 138% of the federal poverty line. This study aimed to measure whether Medicaid expansion is (1) positively associated with the probability that participants are currently insured; (2) inversely related to the probability of reporting unmet need for medical care due to cost in the past year; and (3) positively associated with the probability that they report receiving substance use disorder (SUD) treatment in the past year, among PWID subsisting at ≤ 138% of the federal poverty line.

Public service providers' perspectives on and responses to the health and social consequences of gentrification in Atlanta, Georgia.

Service providers' perspectives on, and responses to the health and social impacts of gentrification have been underexplored. This study's objectives were to assess health and social service providers' perspectives on the causes and impacts of gentrification and their responses to gentrification's impacts. Qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with 15 service providers sampled using maximum variation and snowball sampling, in Atlanta, Georgia, U.

Socioeconomic and racial/ethnic spatial polarization and incarceration among people who inject drugs in 19 US metropolitan areas, 2015.

The purpose of this study is to test, for the first time, the association between spatial social polarization and incarceration among people who inject drugs (PWID) in 19 large U.S. metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in 2015.

Housing Insecurity among Black Women Surviving Intimate Partner Violence during the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Intersectional Qualitative Approach.

Background: To investigate housing experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic among Black women experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV) who are also navigating racism, sexism, and classism.

Methods: From January to April 2021, we conducted in-depth interviews with 50 Black women experiencing IPV in the United States. Guided by intersectionality, a hybrid thematic and interpretive phenomenological analytic approach was used to identify sociostructural factors shaping housing insecurity.

Brief Report: Interruptions in HIV Prevention and Treatment During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study of Transgender and Gender Nonbinary Adults in the United States.

Background: Transgender and gender nonbinary (TNB) people have been disproportionately affected by HIV and the COVID-19 pandemic. This study explored the prevalence of HIV prevention and treatment (HPT) interruptions during the pandemic and identified factors associated with these interruptions.

Setting: Data were drawn from LITE Connect, a US-based, nationwide, online, self-administered survey designed to examine the experiences of TNB adults during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Building health equity through housing policies: critical reflections and future directions for research.

Housing may be at once the most powerful and underused tool at our disposal to improve population health. Using examples from the USA, we argue that current levels of housing insecurity are the result of clear and inequitable policy choices, leading to the entrenchment of health inequities-particularly, across race and class. Solutions to housing insecurity must, therefore, be structural.

Variation in State-Level Eviction Moratorium Protections and Mental Health Among US Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Importance: Although evictions have been associated with adverse mental health outcomes, it remains unclear which stages of the eviction process are associated with mental distress among renters. Variation in COVID-19 pandemic eviction protections across US states enables identification of intervention targets within the eviction process to improve renters' mental health.

Objective: To measure the association between the strength of eviction protections (ie, stages blocked by eviction moratoriums) and mental distress among renters during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Association Between Housing Insecurity, Psychological Distress, and Self-rated Health Among US Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

This survey study examines association of housing insecurity with psychological distress and self-rated health among US adults during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Expiring Eviction Moratoriums and COVID-19 Incidence and Mortality.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and associated economic crisis have placed millions of US households at risk of eviction. Evictions may accelerate COVID-19 transmission by decreasing individuals' ability to socially distance. We leveraged variation in the expiration of eviction moratoriums in US states to test for associations between evictions and COVID-19 incidence and mortality.

Public Support for Policies to Increase Housing Stability During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated longstanding housing precarity. This study measures the public support for policies designed to increase housing stability and gauges whether support levels are associated with views about the role of evictions in COVID-19 transmission and the existence of racial inequities in the housing market.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey with a representative sample of U.

Is the severity of the Great Recession's aftershocks correlated with changes in access to the combined prevention environment among people who inject drugs?

Background: The 2008 Recession was a global event that led to funding cuts for programs and services in the United States; though this recession officially ended in 2009, its aftershocks continued through 2012. We evaluated the relationship between the severity of the Great Recession's aftermath and spatial access to combined prevention services (i.e.

Limited Technology Access Among Residents of Affordable Senior Housing During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

While U.S. adults living in affordable senior housing represent a vulnerable population during the COVID-19 pandemic, affordable housing may provide a foundation for interventions designed to improve technology access to support health.

"People Don't Just Start Shooting Heroin on Their 18 Birthday": A Qualitative Study of Community Stakeholders' Perspectives on Adolescent Opioid Use and Opportunities for Intervention in Baltimore, Maryland.

Initiation of non-medical prescription opioid use (NMPO) during early adolescence is tightly linked to heroin and other drug use disorders and related sequelae in later adolescence and young adulthood. Few studies explore stakeholders' perspectives on the burden and determinants of youth opioid use and barriers and facilitators to engaging youth in opioid use prevention and treatment services in urban settings with longstanding opioid epidemics. In-depth interviews were conducted with 22 stakeholders representing health and social service agencies in Baltimore, Maryland from May 2018- February 2019, to examine their perspectives on the burden and context of adolescent opioid use and identify barriers and facilitators to preventing and responding to adolescent opioid use.

Place-Based Correlates of Exchange Sex Among People Who Inject Drugs in 19 U.S. Metropolitan Areas, 2012.

This study examined overall and gender-specific associations between place-based characteristics and opposite-sex exchange sex among people who inject drugs (PWID) in the U.S. PWID were recruited from 19 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 2012 National HIV Behavioral Surveillance.