Does race salience affect support for policy attention to the opioid crisis?

Last registered on May 30, 2024

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Does race salience affect support for policy attention to the opioid crisis?
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0013659
Initial registration date
May 23, 2024

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
May 30, 2024, 3:15 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
RAND

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
University of Southern California

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2024-05-23
End date
2024-10-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Much research has emphasized the disproportionate impact of the opioid crisis on White individuals in the United States, especially during the first wave. This project considers whether this framing has affected the response to the opioid crisis. In this experiment, we will randomize racial priming in a survey to understand whether it affects stated support for the policy response to the opioid epidemic. We will include a description of the opioid crisis in terms of overdose deaths. In one arm, we will not mention race. In the first treatment arm, we will highlight that most overdose deaths are among White individuals. In the second treatment arm, we will highlight the disproportionately high overdose death rates of Black and American Indian/Alaska Native individuals. We will compare whether this priming affects whether the respondent believes that we dedicate "too much" attention and policy spending on the opioid crisis. We will also include subsequent questions about willingness-to-pay for policies to decrease overdose deaths, whether opioid addiction is a choice, and other questions about possible policy options.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Jacobson, Mireille and David Powell. 2024. "Does race salience affect support for policy attention to the opioid crisis? ." AEA RCT Registry. May 30. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.13659-1.0
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We will randomize whether an introductory discussion of the opioid crisis includes a statistic about race. We will either not include any information by race, highlight that most overdose deaths are among White individuals, or emphasize the disproportionately high overdose deaths rates among Black and American Indian/Alaska Native individuals.
Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2024-05-23
Intervention End Date
2024-05-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Share of respondents who report that the amount of public attention and spending on policies to decrease overdose deaths is “too much.”

We will calculate the share for each arm and compare each treatment arm to the control arm. Our full sample includes a “nationally-representative sample” and an “opioid-dependent sample.” We will use the full sample for the main analysis.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Respondents will be asked:
In your opinion, public attention to the opioid crisis and spending on policies to decrease overdose deaths, such as more opioid use treatment access and more naloxone access, is
 Too much (a)
 Just right (b)
 Not enough (c)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
We will also study the following outcomes:
1) Share of respondents who report that the amount of public attention and spending on policies to decrease overdose deaths is “too much” or “just right.”
2) Share of respondents who select that “opioid use is a choice and people should just not use opioids.” (This answer is only an option for respondents who previously answered that the amount of public attending and spending dedicated to decrease overdose deaths is “too much” or “just right.” Those not given this question will be assigned to not answering that “opioid use is a choice and people should just not use opioids.”)
3) Maximum willingness-to-pay for naloxone policy that would reduce overdose deaths by 1 / 100,000.
4) Share who agree or strongly agree that opioid addiction is a choice. (We will also study each option separately: strongly agree, agree, neither agree or disagree, disagree, strongly disagree)
5) Share who answer that those found misusing opioids should serve jail time.
6) Share who believe that prisons should provide MOUD to prisoners.
7) Share who believe that prisons should provide naloxone to prisoners upon release.


Our sample includes a “nationally-representative sample” and an “opioid-dependent sample.” We will conduct analyses of our primary and secondary outcomes for each sample separately as secondary analyses. When making this stratification, we will rely on our own questions about opioid dependence.

In addition, we will make the same comparisons for stratified samples: (1) people who know someone impacted by opioids in any of the following ways: (a) struggled with an opioid addiction, (b) needed medical attention because of an opioid addiction, (c) sought treatment for an opioid addiction, (d) Faced police contact, arrest, or incarceration due to an opioid addiction, or (e) are likely or very likely to overdose from opioid use; (2) people who are personally impacted by opioid use (same reasons as above) or report being likely or very likely to overdose from opioid use. In each stratification, we will show the comparable results for the sample not meeting the conditions.

(3) We will also stratify by race, gender, and political affiliation.

(4) Finally, we will stratify based on the 2022 overdose death rate of the state.

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We will randomize respondents into one of the three arms with equal probability.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
The code for the survey will perform the randomization in real-time.
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
2000 individuals
Sample size: planned number of observations
2000 individuals
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
We expect about 667 in each arm.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Because we have two treatment arms, we (conservatively) use alpha=0.025 in the power analysis. Our full sample consist of 2000 respondents. We expect each comparison to involve approximately 1333 observations. If the baseline share responding that there is “too much” attention and spending on the opioid crisis is 0.3, then with alpha=0.025, we will be able to detect a difference of 0.0800 with power=0.8.
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
RAND Human Subjects Protection Committee
IRB Approval Date
2023-08-29
IRB Approval Number
2023-N0309
IRB Name
University of Southern California Human Research Protection Program
IRB Approval Date
2024-04-01
IRB Approval Number
UP-24-00279
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials