"Whiteness" and the Opioid Epidemic: A Construct in Need of Elaboration.

The article focuses on a survey-based study of White people who use drugs (PWUD) in 22 rural Appalachian counties, highlighting a high prevalence of unmet needs in this population and finding no association between unmet needs and police stops after adjusting for sociodemographic factors. The study's authors suggest that "Whiteness" may provide psychological and social protections against policing in Appalachia, but this concept remains undefined and speculative within their data, lacking a comparative analysis with other racial groups. The critique emphasizes that material deprivation in the region challenges the notion of Whiteness as inherently beneficial and calls for further qualitative research to better understand social dynamics in Appalachian communities.