Analysis of race effects on drug-test results

Substance abuse has become one of the most pressing public health problems of our times. Its impact on the US workforce is staggering, both in terms of lost productivity and the cost of providing medical care to its victims. Employers usually have programs in place to reduce the impact of substance abuse, which include testing prospective and/or current employees' body fluids or tissues for recreational drugs. Although urine testing remains the test of choice among most employers, the use of hair as a testing matrix has increased substantially in recent years. There has been a legal concern that there may be racial bias in hair testing. In studies of human populations, there has been limited investigation of this issue. This study investigates this question by evaluating the hair-test results of a large cohort of applicants for employment with a major metropolitan police department. The results of the study failed to show any racial bias and thereby suggest that hair-testing methodology would not create a disparity among applicants.