Disparities in Emergency Department Naloxone and Buprenorphine Initiation

Prescribing of buprenorphine and naloxone in the emergency department (ED) has been shown to be an effective intervention. The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency of prescribing of naloxone and buprenorphine and the sub-groups that may be more or less likely to receive treatment.

We used a national electronic health record database to identify patients with opioid poisoning or overdose presenting between January 2019-December 2021. Patients who were prescribed naloxone or buprenorphine were identified in this dataset and then further segmented based on self-identified gender, age, racial and ethnic identity, income categories, and social vulnerability index in order to identify sub-groups that may be less likely to be prescribed treatment.

We found 74,004 patients in the database whom we identified as presenting to the ED with an opioid poisoning or overdose. Overall, 22.8% were discharged with a prescription for naloxone, while 0.9% of patients were discharged with buprenorphine products. Patients were less likely to receive naloxone prescriptions if they were female, White or Pacific Islander, non-Hispanic, not between the ages of 18-65, and non-English speaking. We found the same pattern for buprenorphine prescriptions except that the results were not significant for ethnicity and English-speaking.

Despite evidence supporting its use, buprenorphine is not prescribed from the ED in a substantial proportion of patients. Naloxone is prescribed to a higher percentage, although still a minority of patients receive it. Some sub-groups are disadvantaged in the prescribing of these products. Further study may assist in improving the prescribing of these therapies.