Release Date
Geography
Language of Resource
Full Text Available
Open Access / OK to Reproduce
Peer Reviewed
Objective
Although stigma reduction is a key goal of federal strategies to prevent overdose, there is limited data to assess progress made in reducing use of stigmatizing language about addiction.
Findings/Key points
Use of stigmatizing language about addiction appears to have decreased across more traditional, longer-format communication modalities such as news articles. Additional work is needed to reduce use of stigmatizing language on social media.
Design/methods
Using language guidelines published by the federal National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), we examined trends in use of stigmatizing terms about addiction across four popular public communication modalities: news articles, blogs, Twitter, and Reddit.