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The harmful impact of stigma on individuals struggling with opioid addiction

May 14, 2024

1 min

Valerie Earnshaw

People in recovery from opioid use disorder often struggle with decisions to tell others about their past substance use, treatment, and/or recovery. Although disclosures that go well can lead to social support that is helpful for recovery, disclosures that go poorly can lead to stigma that can harm recovery.


Valerie Earnshaw, associate professor in the College of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Delaware, specializes in speaking about addiction and stigma and can speak on this phenomenon. 



She recently spoke about this topic a the annual Marion H. Steele Symposium at UD. 


Earnshaw charted the growth of the opioid crisis in the United States, discussed stigma as a complex social process with the power to affect health outcomes and shared her work on an intervention she designed to help people with the disclosure process.


She can be contacted by clicking her "View Profile" button. 


Connect with:
Valerie Earnshaw

Valerie Earnshaw

Professor, Human Development and Family Sciences

Prof. Earnshaw examines associations between stigma and health inequities.

Health InequitiesHealth OutcomesHIV StigmaAIDS StigmaStigmatized Conditions‎
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