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Workplace Drug Testing More Common Among African American Workers Study Finds
November 08, 2013 posted by Steve Brownstein
African American workers are 17 percent more likely than white workers to report working for employers that perform workplace drug testing, according to a study from the Yale School of Medicine published in the Early View of the American Journal on Addictions available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1521-0391.2013.12109.x/abstract.
The study – ‘Racial/ethnic differences in report of drug testing practices at the workplace level in the U.S.’ – analyzed nearly 70,000 responses from the 2008–2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health for the relationship between race and ethnicity in workplace drug testing among white, Hispanic, and African American workers 18 years or older. The results of the study include the following:
•Among 69,163 respondents, 48.2 percent reported employment in a workplace that performs drug testing.
•Of the 48.2 percent reporting workplace drug testing, 63.6 percent of African American workers reported working for an employer that drug tested opposed to 45.9 percent of white workers.
•Younger African American males living in non-urban areas and likely working “blue collar” jobs were associated with reporting of workplace level drug testing.
•African Americans were associated with reporting of workplace level drug testing among executive/administrative/managerial/financial workers and technicians/related support occupations.
•Hispanics were associated with reporting of workplace level drug testing among technicians/related support occupations.
The study – authored by William C. Becker MD, Salimah Meghani PhD, Jeanette M. Tetrault MD, and David A. Fiellin MD – found that “racial/ethnic differences in report of workplace drug testing exist within and across various occupations” and also “highlights the potential bias that can be introduced when drug testing policies are not implemented in a universal fashion,” according to its authors.
