Journal of Science Policy & Governance
​Volume 19, Issue 01 | November 01, 2021

Policy Memo: NIDA’s Funding Policies Contribute to Racial Biases in the Treatment of Drug Use

Priyanka N. Bushana (1,2), Emma N. Cook (3,4)
  1. Washington State University Health Sciences, Biomedical Sciences Department, Spokane WA
  2. Washington State University Health Sciences, Health Sciences Student Advocacy Association, Spokane, WA
  3. University of Virginia, Department of Chemistry, Charlottesville, VA
  4. University of Virginia, The Science Policy Initiative at UVA, Charlottesville, VA

​Corresponding author: [email protected]
Keywords: NIDA; drug policy; addiction; drug abuse; racial inequities; research funding; Ginther gap

Executive Summary

The research funding policies of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) reinforce racial biases by stigmatizing drug use. NIDA is currently working toward “eliminating racism in [its] workplace, scientific workforce, and research portfolio” via its Racial Equity Initiative (REI) (Volkow 2021; National Institute on Drug Abuse 2021d). However, the REI falls short of committing to a sustainable or direct course of action to reform its funding policies. This policy memo offers NIDA guidance to prioritize the REI’s Actionable Steps to address racial stigmas underlying its current funding policies by: 1) closing the Ginther gap, 2) increasing research into the social determinants of health and equity (SDOH/E) underlying drug use, and 3) increasing research into normative drug use.

-Read the full article through download.-

Background header image by Anna Shvets from Pexels
​Priyanka Bushana is a Ph.D. candidate in the Neuroscience program at Washington State University. Her research is focused on the brain oscillations which support cognitive function and their relationships with oxidative stress and sleep. She is a co-founder and the president of the Health Sciences Student Advocacy Association (HSSAA), which connects science trainees and professional students to health and science policymakers.
 
Emma Cook is a Ph.D. candidate in the chemistry department at the University of Virginia. Her research focuses on the development of electrocatalysts for the activation and reduction of dioxygen, which is relevant to biology energy processes and alternative energy applications. She is interested in science communication and science policy relevant to climate change and equity. She received her B.S. in chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2019.
 
Acknowledgements
The authors of this memo were brought together by their work through their respective science policy organizations: the Health Sciences Student Advocacy Association (HSSAA) and The Science Policy Initiative at UVA (SPUVA). We would also like to acknowledge the support and guidance of Ilene Friedman, J.D. in completing this work.

References

  1. Aidala, Angela, Jay E Cross, Ron Stall, David Harre, and Esther Sumartojo. 2005. "Housing status and HIV risk behaviors: implications for prevention and policy." AIDS and Behavior 9 (3): 251-265. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16088369/.
  2. Atkins, Jennifer, Anna Legreid Dopp, and Edna Boone Temaner. 2020. "Combatting the Stigma of Addiction—The Need for a Comprehensive Health System Approach." NAM Perspectives. https://nam.edu/combatting-the-stigma-of-addiction-the-need-for-a-comprehensive-health-system-approach/.
  3. Becker, Gay, and Edwina Newsom. 2003. "Socioeconomic status and dissatisfaction with health care among chronically ill African Americans." American journal of public health 93 (5): 742-748. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1447830/.
  4. Booth, William. 1988. "War breaks out over drug research agency." Science 241 (4866): 648. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2840741/.
  5. Cheng, Tessa, Evan Wood, Paul Nguyen, Thomas Kerr, and Kora DeBeck. 2014. "Increases and decreases in drug use attributed to housing status among street-involved youth in a Canadian setting." Harm reduction journal 11 (1): 1-6. https://harmreductionjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1477-7517-11-12.
  6. Collins, Francis. 2021. "NIH stands against structural racism in biomedical research." March 1, 2021. https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director/statements/nih-stands-against-structural-racism-biomedical-research.
  7. Cooper, Hannah LF. 2015. "War on drugs policing and police brutality." Substance use & misuse 50 (8-9): 1188-1194. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4800748/.
  8. DuPont, Robert. 1971. "Profile of a heroin-addiction epidemic." The New England Journal of Medicine 285 (6): 320-324. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJM197108052850605. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/5091324/.
  9. DuPont, Robert. 2009. "Reflections on the early history of National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA): implications for today." Journal of Drug Issues 39 (1): 5-14. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/002204260903900101.
  10. Garland, Tammy S, and Vic W Bumphus. 2012. "Race, bias, and attitudes toward drug control policy." Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice 10 (2): 148-161. http://ascdwc.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/garland_1.pdf.
  11. Ginther, Donna K, Walter T Schaffer, Joshua Schnell, Beth Masimore, Faye Liu, Laurel L Haak, and Raynard Kington. 2011. "Race, ethnicity, and NIH research awards." Science 333 (6045): 1015-1019. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/333/6045/1015.
  12. Goodwin, Frederick K. 1988. "NIDA's Role in War on Drugs." Science 242 (4875): 15-16. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/242/4875/15.2.
  13. Hart, Carl L. 2017. "Viewing addiction as a brain disease promotes social injustice." Nature Human Behaviour 1 (3): 1-1. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0055.
  14. Hart, Carl L. 2020. "Exaggerating harmful drug effects on the brain is killing black people." Neuron 107 (2): 215-218. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0896627320304736.
  15. Hoppe, Travis A, Aviva Litovitz, Kristine A Willis, Rebecca A Meseroll, Matthew J Perkins, B Ian Hutchins, Alison F Davis, Michael S Lauer, Hannah A Valantine, and James M Anderson. 2019. "Topic choice contributes to the lower rate of NIH awards to African-American/black scientists." Science Advances 5 (10): eaaw7238. https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/10/eaaw7238.
  16. Krane, Kris. 2019. "Bigger Than Cannabis: Lessons From The Drug Policy Alliance Biennial Conference." Forbes, December 6, 2019, 2019. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kriskrane/2019/12/06/recapping-the-drug-policy-alliances-annual-conference/.
  17. Mervis, Jeffrey. 2019. "Study identifies a key reason black scientists are less likely to receive NIH funding | Science | AAAS." Science, 2019-10-09T14:00:01-04:00, 2019. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/10/study-identifies-key-reason-black-scientists-are-less-likely-receive-nih-funding.
  18. National Institute on Drug Abuse. 2016. 2016-2020 NIDA Strategic Plan | NIDA's Mission. @NIDAnews. https://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/strategic-plan/nidas-mission.
  19. National Institute on Drug Abuse. 2021a. "Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study | Collaborative Research on Addiction at NIH." https://www.drugabuse.gov/drug-topics/adolescent-brain/longitudinal-study-adolescent-brain-cognitive-development-abcd-study.
  20. National Institute on Drug Abuse. 2021b. National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Enhancing Health Disparities Research Related to Substance Use and Addiction: Research Gaps and Opportunities Executive Summary. https://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/racial-equity-initiative/research-gaps-opportunities.
  21. National Institute on Drug Abuse. 2021c. Overdose Death Rates | National Institute on Drug Abuse. @NIDAnews. https://www.drugabuse.gov/drug-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates.
  22. National Institute on Drug Abuse. 2021d. "Racial Equity Initiative | National Institute on Drug Abuse." @NIDAnews. Last Modified 2021-02-26. https://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/racial-equity-initiative.
  23. National Institute on Drug Abuse. 2021e. RFA: Social Determinants of Health | NIH SBIR/STTR. https://sbir.nih.gov/nida/RFA%3ASocial_Determinants.
  24. National Institutes of Health. 2021. "Racial Disparities in NIH Funding | NIH." https://diversity.nih.gov/building-evidence/racial-disparities-nih-funding.
  25. Palepu, Anita, Steffanie A Strathdee, Robert S Hogg, Aslam H Anis, Sandra Rae, Peter GA Cornelisse, David M Patrick, Michael V O'Shaughnessy, and Martin T Schechter. 1999. "The social determinants of emergency department and hospital use by injection drug users in Canada." Journal of Urban Health 76 (4): 409-418. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10609591/.
  26. Rosenberg, Alana, Allison K Groves, and Kim M Blankenship. 2017. "Comparing Black and White drug offenders: Implications for racial disparities in criminal justice and reentry policy and programming." Journal of drug issues 47 (1): 132-142. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5614457/.
  27. Shikles, JL, AB Jojokian, RM Martinez, N Donovan, JL Guilliams-Tapia, Experience Education, and United States of America. 1990. "Drug Abuse: Research on Treatment May Not Address Current Needs." https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/drug-abuse-research-treatment-may-not-address-current-needs.
  28. Taffe, Michael A, and Nicholas W Gilpin. 2021. "Equity, Diversity and Inclusion: Racial inequity in grant funding from the US National Institutes of Health." Elife 10: e65697. https://elifesciences.org/articles/65697.
  29. The Drug Policy Alliance. 2021a. "A Brief History of the Drug War." https://drugpolicy.org/issues/brief-history-drug-war.
  30. The Drug Policy Alliance. 2021b. "Mass Incarceration and Criminalization." https://drugpolicy.org/issues/mass-criminalization.
  31. The Drug Policy Alliance. 2021c. "Race and the Drug War." [Website]. The Drug Policy Alliance. https://drugpolicy.org/issues/race-and-drug-war.
  32. The Drug Policy Alliance. 2021d. "Supervised Consumption Services." The Drug Policy Alliance. Accessed 2021. https://drugpolicy.org/issues/supervised-consumption-services.
  33. The Drug Policy Alliance. 2021e. The Drug War, Mass Incarceration and Race. The Drug Policy Alliance. https://www.unodc.org/documents/ungass2016/Contributions/Civil/DrugPolicyAlliance/DPA_Fact_Sheet_Drug_War_Mass_Incarceration_and_Race_June2015.pdf.
  34. Tonry, Michael. 1994. "Race and the War on Drugs." University of Chicago Legal Forum: 25. https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1155&context=uclf.
  35. Volkow, Nora. 2021. "NIH and NIDA Work to End Structural Racism in Biomedical Science | National Institute on Drug Abuse." @NIDAnews. https://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/noras-blog/2021/03/nih-nida-work-to-end-structural-racism-in-biomedical-science.
  36. Volkow, Nora, George Koob, and A Thomas McLellan. 2016. "Neurobiologic advances from the brain disease model of addiction." New England Journal of Medicine 374 (4): 363-371. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmra1511480.
  37. Walker, Ingrid, and Julie Netherland. 2019. "Developing a transformative drug policy research agenda in the United States." Contemporary Drug Problems 46 (1): 3-21. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0091450918811178.
DISCLAIMER: The findings and conclusions published herein are solely attributed to the author and not necessarily endorsed or adopted by the Journal of Science Policy and Governance. Articles are distributed in compliance with copyright and trademark agreements.

ISSN 2372-2193
© 2022 Journal of Science Policy & Governance, Inc. All rights reserved. The opinions, findings and conclusions from JSPG publications, additional article commentaries and related events do not necessarily reflect the views of the journal.