Addressing Substance Use Disorders Through Social Action: A Human Rights-Based Narrative Review for Social Work Practice

Substance use disorders remain a significant public health, social, and human rights challenge, with profound consequences for individuals, families, and communities worldwide. While social work responses have traditionally emphasised therapeutic, rehabilitative, and individual-level interventions, comparatively less attention has been paid to macro-level strategies that address the structural conditions underpinning substance-related harms. Drawing on the South African context, where the legacies of historical inequality, poverty, social exclusion, and unequal access to services continue to shape patterns of substance use, this narrative review argues that substance use disorders should be understood not only as health conditions but also as manifestations of human rights and social justice concerns. Using the social action model as its theoretical framework, the review synthesises literature from social work, public health, community development, and human rights scholarship to examine how social action can operationalise a rights-based approach to substance use interventions. The review demonstrates that integrating human rights principles with social action enables social workers to move beyond predominantly individualised practice towards interventions that promote community mobilisation, collective participation, advocacy, policy engagement, and structural transformation. Rather than positioning therapeutic and community-based responses as competing approaches, the paper argues that they are complementary and mutually reinforcing. By integrating these perspectives within a coherent conceptual framework, this review advances understanding of how social workers can simultaneously uphold human dignity, address structural inequalities, and strengthen equitable responses to substance use disorders. The paper concludes that embedding social action within a human rights-based approach enhances social work’s contribution to prevention, intervention, policy development, and community-led social change in South Africa and other contexts characterised by social inequality.