Substance Use Disorder Treatment Deserts in Southwestern Ohio, USA

The opioid crisis is one of the most pressing public health issues facing Ohio, with an impact unevenly distributed across the state. The term “desert” has been applied to discuss geographical areas with limited access to goods and services (e.g. food desert). This work examined geographical barriers to substance abuse disorder (SUD) treatment, and explored the existence of SUD treatment deserts in Southwestern Ohio.

The study domain included the 13 counties in Ohio Mental Health and Addiction Service’s Cincinnati region: Adams, Butler, Brown, Clermont, Clinton, Fayette, Hamilton, Highland, Lawrence, Pike, Ross, Scioto, and Warren. Publicly available substance abuse treatment data was collected from government agency resources, pharmaceutical websites, and web searches between August 2019 and February 2020. Treatment deserts were defined as areas in the 13-county study area that were not within a 15 minute drive from a treatment center.

The four geopackage (*.gpkg) files are spatial data files that represent polygonal areas considered to be treatment deserts for the three types of treatments (Naltrexone/Buprenorphine, Methadone, and Behavioral) and for any type of treatment.