One part of the podcast in particular that resonated with me regarding the impact of assumptions was the mention of the Opioid Crisis in relation to rural Tennessee. I grew up in rural Tennessee and very much saw the impact of this assumption both in my education and in healthcare practices. My mom works as a physical therapist, and when I was younger she worked in home health. While of course she never spoke about her patients due to confidentiality, I would hear about the places she had to drive in order to treat patients who had limited mobility to the point that they couldn’t leave their houses to go to therapy. Dr. Bezio’s discussion of how the crackdown on opiates and other medication limited access to those who genuinely needed it to function. Yet, even in rural Tennessee, where the negative impacts are so prominent and visible, the assumptions and stereotypes that come with them persist. In fifth grade, my school also introduced D.A.R.E, and most of what I remember of it is a police officer telling us horror stories about the influences of drugs. Of what I remember, many of these stories included lots of stereotyping, highlighting people in poverty and people of color as the primary groups who became addicted to drugs, and advising the students to avoid plastic bottles on the side of the road because they might have been used in meth labs or for other drugs.

The podcast’s discussion of the opioid crisis brought up these memories for me, and provided an example of how stereotypes and assumptions harm both those who are being stereotyped, and those who apply the stereotypes to others. Even within a region that, for the most part, have similar resources available regarding healthcare and education, and even experience the harm caused by certain stereotypes and assumptions, still carry these same assumptions as implicit biases. Despite the true impact of the opioid crisis on individuals who genuinely need access to these medications, others in the community still receive the same education that suggests a very different narrative surrounding drugs and the opioid crisis that perpetuates even more harm through racist stereotypes and assumptions related to socioeconomic statuses.