A 15-year study published in the January Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) entitled "Trends in Opioid Prescribing by Race/Ethnicity for Patients Seeking Care in US Emergency Departments" shows that since the 1990s, white patients were more likely to receive opioids as painkillers than non-white.

Over the course of the survey, pain-related complaints accounted for 42 percent of the 374,891 emergency department visits studies. An opioid analgesic was prescribed at 29 percent of pain-related visits, steadily increasing from 23 percent in 1993 to 37 percent in 2005. Opoid prescriptions were much more likely to be given whites (31 percent) than by blacks (23 percent), Hispanics (24 percent), or Asians/others (28 percent). By 2005, opioid prescription rates were up to 40 percent in whites and 32 percent in all others.

Other numbers showed that "differences in prescribing between whites and non-whites were greater among people with the worst pain. Among patients in severe pain, opioids were prescribed to 52 percent of whites, 42 percent of Hispanics and 39 percent of blacks" and that non-opioid pain reliever, such as acetaminophen (a.k.a. Tylenol) were prescribed more for non-whites than whites, at 36 percent to 26.

While study authors cautioned that "Causes of disparities in medical care, however, are complex, and simple racial/ethnic bias is unlikely to fully explain the problem," the text also states that "Our results suggest that new strategies are needed to understand and improve the quality and equity of management of acute pain in the United States."