The study, which analyzed substance-use life history interviews carried out from 2010 to 2012, focused on urban and rural locations within the Arkansas Mississippi Delta - a region characterized by strained race relations, a stagnant economy, high unemployment, low incomes and high emigration, and where the population is predominantly African Americans living in poverty.
"African Americans within such contexts often face multiple obstacles to accessing formal drug treatment services, including access to care and lack of culturally appropriate treatment programs," said lead researcher Ann Cheney, an assistant professor in the department of social medicine and population health in the Center for Healthy Communities in the UC Riverside School of Medicine. "Despite these obstacles, many initiate and maintain recovery without accessing formal treatment. They do so by leveraging resources or what we refer to as 'recovery capital' - employment, education, faith community - by strategically connecting to and obtaining support from non-drug using family and friends."