Integrating Census Data with Electronic Health Records to Assess the Impact of Social Determinants of Health on Opioid Use Disorder

Electronic health record (EHR) data has become an invaluable resource for biomedical research, yet it is limited for health disparity and equity research due to the lack of comprehensive information on social determinants of health (SDoH). In this study, we enriched EHR data from a large healthcare system in the St. Louis metropolitan area with SDoH from United States Census data to examine patterns of opioid use disorder (OUD) and access to medications for OUD (MOUD). By linking patient addresses in the EHR to census tracts in the geospatial data, we identified geographic and sociodemographic disparities in OUD prevalence and MOUD treatment allocation. Patients who were male, Black, or living in areas with greater poverty remained less likely to receive treatment. These findings highlight the value of integrating EHR and geospatial SDoH data to uncover inequities in care and inform more equitable, targeted strategies to address the opioid epidemic.