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The article focuses on the U.S. media's use of the term 'red state' to indicate a state that supports republican candidates and the term 'blue state' to indicate a state that supports democratic candidates. The authors analyze the content of several American print newspapers from 2000 to 2008 to establish the frames in which the red and blue dichotomy exists, which newspapers were early adopters of the terms, and how the terms have evolved throughout the election cycles. Their findings include that "The Washington Post" and "The New York Times" were the first to begin using the terms in 2002, that the term 'red state' is used most often, and that the term 'purple state' has also emerged to describe swing states.

Objective: Factors contributing to racial and ethnic disparities in medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) receipt during pregnancy are largely unknown. We quantified the contribution of individual, healthcare access and quality, and community factors to racial-ethnic disparities in MOUD during pregnancy and postpartum among Medicaid-enrolled pregnant women with opioid use disorder (OUD)., Methods: This retrospective cohort study used regression and nonlinear decomposition to examine how individual, healthcare access and quality, and community factors explain racial-ethnic disparities in MOUD receipt among Medicaid-enrolled women with OUD who had a live birth from 2011 to 2017. The exposure was self-reported race and ethnicity. The outcomes were any MOUD receipt during pregnancy or postpartum. All factors included were identified from the literature., Results: Racial-ethnic disparities in individual, healthcare access and quality, and community factors explained 15.8% of the racial-ethnic disparity in MOUD receipt during pregnancy and 68.9% of the disparity in the postpartum period. Despite comparable healthcare utilization, non-White/Hispanic women were diagnosed with OUD 37 days later in pregnancy, on average, than non-Hispanic White women, which was the largest contributor to the racial-ethnic disparity in MOUD receipt during pregnancy (111.0%). The racial-ethnic disparity in MOUD receipt during pregnancy was the largest contributor (112.2%) to the racial-ethnic disparity in MOUD in the postpartum period., Conclusions: Later diagnosis of OUD in pregnancy among non-White/Hispanic women partially explains the disparities in MOUD receipt in this population. Universal substance use screening earlier in pregnancy, combined with connecting patients to evidence-based and culturally competent care, is one approach that could close the observed racial-ethnic disparity in MOUD receipt., Competing Interests: The authors report no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2022 American Society of Addiction Medicine.)