Prescription drug abuse in the U.S. has been on the rise for decades. Most studies show the increase has been greater in rural areas. But a new study suggests that’s not the case.
It has long been considered a fact that there were more risk factors for opioid abuse in rural areas. Here’s how that thinking goes…
“Not a lot of jobs so lots of time on my hands. I don’t have a lot of money, so what am I going to do to entertain myself.”
Tracy Cohn is Associate Professor of Psychology at Radford University. His graduate students looked back adolescent opioid at national survey data from 1994 to 2000. Their analysis showed opioid abuse increased in the rural and non rural participants at pretty much the same rate. … And that growing up in a rural area did not significantly predict opioid injection--- a hallmark for stronger addiction. Cohn says it may be that the concept of a ‘rural risk factor’ as a may be too great a generalization.
“So we look at rural areas and here we are in central Appalachia and and Appalachia extends from New York way down into even to South Carolina. So maybe Appalachia is a unique cultural experience as opposed to say, Appalachia New York or maybe rural Kansas is a different experience than central Appalachia. So that may be one of the problems we’re running into. As we think about rural, it is not a unique experience, in and of itself, the way we’ve argued that rural is rural is rural.”
The research paper contradicts six earlier studies suggesting rural opioid use as a distinct phenomenon. It was co-authored by grad students Michael Love, Thomas Pierce, Sarah Hastings and Associate Professor of Psychology, Tracy Cohn.
