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Primary care physicians can prescribe medication for opioid use disorder . But according to a recent national survey , most people don ’ t know this life-saving fact .

This lack of awareness is significant considering the efforts that have been made to lower the barriers to addiction treatment , says lead study author Brandon del Pozo , PhD , an assistant professor of medicine and of health services , policy , and practice ( research ) at Brown .

“ We ’ ve made great strides in making it easier for primary care doctors to prescribe these safe and effective treatments , but our study indicates a critical disconnect between the need for medications for opioid use disorder and people ’ s knowledge about how to access them ,” del Pozo says .

Decades of research have shown the effectiveness of medications such as buprenorphine and methadone for opioid use disorder . Federal policy

changes such as the elimination of specialized training requirements and patient caps have made it simpler for PCPs to prescribe these treatments . Yet a recent study found that , in the year after the elimination of a waiver requirement to prescribe buprenorphine , the number of prescribers increased while the number of people receiving the medication did not .

According to a survey that del Pozo and colleagues analyzed , 61 percent of respondents were unaware that PCPs can prescribe medication for opioid use disorder , and 13 percent incorrectly believed that they could not — and Black survey respondents were most likely to hold that belief . The researchers published their findings in JAMA Network Open .

“ Raising awareness is critical to increasing effective treatment of opioid use disorders , and to reducing the racial and ethnic disparities in knowledge about access to treatment ,” del Pozo says .

The Hunger Habit : Why We Eat When We ’ re Not Hungry and How to Stop

BY JUDSON BREWER , MD , PHD AVERY , 2024

When Judson Brewer , MD , PhD , associate professor of psychiatry and human behavior and the director of research and innovation at Brown ’ s Mindfulness Center , started studying diets , he noticed that “ they had one thing in common : shoulding .”

Telling people what they should and should not eat , and labeling foods and habits as “ good ” or “ bad ,” only reinforces the cycle of shame and self-blame that defines so many people ’ s relationship with eating . Brewer prefers to describe habits as “ helpful ” and “ unhelpful ,” because they are “ something that our brains do at a very basic survival level ,” not actions to be judged .

But we aren ’ t hostages to our habits . Brewer , who has studied and taught mindfulness techniques for decades to help patients overcome nicotine dependence and anxiety , writes that if we understand how our brains work , we can curb emotional eating , too . Chapter by chapter , continued on p6 J

WINTER 2025 l HEALTH DISCOVERIES @ BROWN 5