IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/soecon/v92y2025i1p87-110.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effect of substance use Certificate‐of‐Need laws on access to substance use disorder treatment facilities

Author

Listed:
  • Shishir Shakya
  • Christine Bretschneider‐Fries

Abstract

We investigate how substance use Certificate‐of‐Need (CON) laws influence access to substance use disorder treatment facilities in the United States. We use the National Directory of Drug and Alcohol Abuse Treatment Facilities data set, which lists all federal, state, and local government facilities and private facilities that provide substance use treatment services in 2020. Based on the locations of these facilities, we develop a novel access index to substance use disorder treatment facilities that accounts for driving distance and duration to measure the ease of reaching these facilities for individuals living at the population‐weighted county centroids. We find that counties in states with CON laws that border counties without such laws have nearly 10% less spatial accessibility to substance use disorder treatment facilities at a 5% level of significance.

Suggested Citation

  • Shishir Shakya & Christine Bretschneider‐Fries, 2025. "The effect of substance use Certificate‐of‐Need laws on access to substance use disorder treatment facilities," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 92(1), pages 87-110, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:soecon:v:92:y:2025:i:1:p:87-110
    DOI: 10.1002/soej.12689
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/soej.12689
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/soej.12689?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Corredor-Waldron, Adriana & Currie, Janet, 2022. "“Tackling the Substance Use Disorder Crisis: The Role of Access to Treatment Facilities”," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    2. Joseph, Alun E. & Bantock, Peter R., 1982. "Measuring potential physical accessibility to general practitioners in rural areas: A method and case study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 85-90, January.
    3. Mitchell, Matt, 2016. "Do Certificate-of-Need Laws Limit Spending?," Working Papers 07021, George Mason University, Mercatus Center.
    4. Stratmann, Thomas & Koopman, Chris, 2016. "Entry Regulation and Rural Health Care: Certificate-of-Need Laws, Ambulatory Surgical Centers, and Community Hospitals," Working Papers 06893, George Mason University, Mercatus Center.
    5. Thomas Stratmann, 2022. "The Effects of Certificate-of-Need Laws on the Quality of Hospital Medical Services," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-29, June.
    6. Swensen, Isaac D., 2015. "Substance-abuse treatment and mortality," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 13-30.
    7. Bishai, D. & Sindelar, J. & Ricketts, E.P. & Huettner, S. & Cornelius, L. & Lloyd, J.J. & Havens, J.R. & Latkin, C.A. & Strathdee, S.A., 2008. "Willingness to pay for drug rehabilitation: Implications for cost recovery," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 959-972, July.
    8. Marc F. Bellemare & Casey J. Wichman, 2020. "Elasticities and the Inverse Hyperbolic Sine Transformation," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 82(1), pages 50-61, February.
    9. James Bailey & Tom Hamami, 2023. "Competition and health‐care spending: Theory and application to Certificate of Need laws," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 41(1), pages 128-145, January.
    10. Linlin Zhang & Xiaobin Zhang & Huiling Huang & Liang Zhang & Huan Li, 2022. "Spatial Accessibility of Multiple Facilities for Affordable Housing Neighborhoods in Harbin, China," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-19, October.
    11. Agnitra Roy Choudhury & Sriparna Ghosh & Alicia Plemmons, 2022. "Certificate of Need Laws and Health Care Use during the COVID-19 Pandemic," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-11, February.
    12. Chiu, Kevin, 2021. "The impact of certificate of need laws on heart attack mortality: Evidence from county borders," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shishir Shakya & Christine Bretschneider Fries, 2023. "Impacts of Certificate-of-need State Laws on Substance Abuse Treatment Facilities and Services," Working Papers 23-08, Department of Economics, Appalachian State University.
    2. Matthew D. Mitchell, 2025. "Certificate‐of‐Need laws in healthcare: A comprehensive review of the literature," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 92(1), pages 6-43, July.
    3. Vitor Melo & Liam Sigaud & Elijah Neilson & Markus Bjoerkheim, 2025. "Rural healthcare access and supply constraints: A causal analysis," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 92(1), pages 44-62, July.
    4. Vitor Melo & Liam Sigaud & Elijah Neilson & Markus Bjoerkheim, 2024. "Rural Healthcare Access and Supply Constraints: A Causal Analysis," Papers 2405.08168, arXiv.org.
    5. Thomas Stratmann & Markus Bjoerkheim & Christopher Koopman, 2025. "The causal effect of repealing Certificate‐of‐Need laws for ambulatory surgical centers: Does access to medical services increase?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 92(1), pages 63-86, July.
    6. Moiz Bhai, 2025. "The effect of Certificate‐of‐Need laws on physician earnings and labor supply," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 92(1), pages 152-175, July.
    7. Buckles, Kasey & Evans, William N. & Lieber, Ethan M.J., 2023. "The drug crisis and the living arrangements of children," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    8. DiNardi, Michael, 2025. "The Reformulation of OxyContin and Availability of Substance Use Treatment Facilities in the United States," MPRA Paper 124502, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Conor Lennon & Johanna Catherine Maclean & Keith F. Teltser, 2024. "Ridesharing and Substance Use Disorder Treatment," NBER Working Papers 33077, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Lennon, Conor & Maclean, Johanna Catherine & Teltser, Keith, 2025. "Ridesharing and substance use disorder treatment," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    11. Mir M. Ali & Thanh Lu & Johanna Catherine Maclean & Angélica Meinhofer, 2024. "Mental Health, Substance Use, and Child Maltreatment," NBER Working Papers 32895, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Jin, Tanhua & Cheng, Long & Wang, Kailai & Cao, Jun & Huang, Haosheng & Witlox, Frank, 2022. "Examining equity in accessibility to multi-tier healthcare services across different income households using estimated travel time," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 1-13.
    13. Leopoldo Fergusson & Carlos Molina, 2020. "Facebook Causes Protests," HiCN Working Papers 323, Households in Conflict Network.
    14. Giuseppe Maggio & Marina Mastrorillo & Nicholas J. Sitko, 2022. "Adapting to High Temperatures: Effect of Farm Practices and Their Adoption Duration on Total Value of Crop Production in Uganda," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 104(1), pages 385-403, January.
    15. Emanuele Amodio & Michele Battisti & Antonio Francesco Gravina & Andrea Mario Lavezzi & Giuseppe Maggio, 2023. "School‐age vaccination, school openings and Covid‐19 diffusion," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(5), pages 1084-1100, May.
    16. Mahdi Ghodsi, 2024. "Regulatory convergence within technical barriers to trade," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(5), pages 1870-1915, May.
    17. Thomas S. Dee & Emily K. Penner, 2021. "My Brother's Keeper? The Impact of Targeted Educational Supports," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(4), pages 1171-1196, September.
    18. Jiang, Wenhao & Stickley, Andrew & Ueda, Michiko, 2021. "Green space and suicide mortality in Japan: An ecological study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 282(C).
    19. Pei, Shunshun & Zhai, Changhai & Hu, Jie, 2024. "Surrogate model-assisted seismic resilience assessment of the interdependent transportation and healthcare system considering a two-stage recovery strategy," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 244(C).
    20. Walelign,Solomon Zena & Wang Sonne,Soazic Elise & Seshan,Ganesh Kumar, 2022. "Livelihood Impacts of Refugees on Host Communities : Evidence from Ethiopia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10044, The World Bank.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:soecon:v:92:y:2025:i:1:p:87-110. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)2325-8012 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.