Mental Health Workers Show Higher Opioid Stigma Than General Public

The people Americans are most likely to turn to for help with addiction may be among the most likely to judge them for it. A University of Georgia study published this week in the Community Mental Health Journal found that mental health workers hold more stigmatizing views toward people with opioid addiction than the general population does — a finding with direct implications for who gets treated, and how.

The researchers surveyed 1,600 people across 13 Southern states, asking participants how strongly they agreed with a series of statements about people with opioid use problems. Mental health workers — including those providing treatment and support services — and first responders were more likely than other participants to endorse the harshest statements.

What the survey asked

The statements were blunt. Participants rated their agreement with claims such as "People with opioid use problems are to blame for their situation," "I tend to negatively judge people with opioid use problems," and the assertion that people who take drug therapies like methadone "are replacing one addiction with another."

That last belief cuts directly against decades of clinical evidence. Methadone and buprenorphine are the standard of care for opioid use disorder, shown to reduce overdose deaths and stabilize patients in long-term recovery. Yet the survey suggests the "replacing one addiction" framing persists even among professionals whose work brings them into regular contact with people who misuse opioids.

"Stigma is a mental barrier to seeking help," said Virginia Brown, lead author of the study and a University of Georgia Cooperative Extension evaluation specialist in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. "If you're afraid that someone will judge you because you are experiencing an opioid use disorder, you are less likely to seek treatment."

Why stigma among helpers matters

The stakes are not abstract. More than 82,000 people died of opioid overdoses in the United States in 2024, and the Department of Health and Human Services estimates that millions more Americans live with an opioid use disorder. Treatment capacity has expanded in recent years, but access still depends on the willingness of individual providers to prescribe, refer, and engage.

That is where provider attitudes become a structural problem. The researchers note that healthcare workers who hold negative views of opioid-addicted patients may be less likely to prescribe the medications that help manage addiction — meaning stigma doesn't just discourage patients from walking through the door; it can narrow what happens once they do. Medication-assisted treatment already reaches only a fraction of the people who need it, and the new findings suggest part of that gap is attitudinal rather than logistical.

"We know that people get into these professions to help people, but for whatever reason, they're experiencing stigma towards people struggling with opioid addiction," Brown said. "That's something that needs to be addressed."

Training as a remedy

The authors stop short of blaming individual workers. Instead, they point to training as the most practical lever for change. Programs that emphasize listening with an open mind and withholding judgment — along with established curricula such as Mental Health First Aid, which teaches people to recognize the signs of addiction and connect others to care — could help close the gap between intent and practice.

"We have evidence from this study that people want to help each other get better, but they don't necessarily have the tools to do it," Brown said. "We're hoping that this study is just another piece of the puzzle to lead people on the path to addressing this issue and helping reduce this disorder."

The study was co-authored by Thuy Dung Pham, principal investigator Diane Bales, Maria Bowie and Anna Scheyett. Its focus on 13 Southern states is notable: the region has some of the nation's highest overdose rates relative to treatment capacity, and its rural areas face acute shortages of addiction specialists — making the attitudes of the generalist mental health workforce, often the only point of contact, even more consequential.