“Opioid epidemic in the United States: empirical trends, and a literature review of social determinants and epidemiological, pain management, and treatment patterns” is an article written by Singh et al. (2019). The article was published in the International Journal of Maternal and Child Health and AIDS. The authors address the national healthcare crisis presented by an increase in the number of mortality outcomes connected to drug and opioid use in the United States that took place in the last twenty years. The article analyzes the cases of mortality from drug overdose to define empirical trends in the social determinants and features a review of literature that focused on the opioid crisis in the United States.
The article is based on the National Vital Statistics System data that provided informational context to drug overdose cases with terminal outcomes. The information and analyses by different categories that intersect with socioeconomic categories of the population, such as age, gender, and racial component, were provided by the National Center for Health Statistics. The authors used a log-linear regression model to estimate the change in the number of mortality outcomes over seventeen years. The literature review covers 39 articles that focus on epidemiology, pain management, and treatment policy.
The authors determined that drug overdose mortality outcomes have substantial disparities by geographic, racial, gender, and socioeconomic factors in their research. The research defined a correlation between the number of opioid prescriptions and factors of population size, education level, poverty level, and insurance status. According to Singh et al. (2019), economic conditions such as the population’s economic opportunities and working conditions contribute to mortality cases from drug overdose. Moreover, unemployment and economic deprivation in rural areas influence the fast distribution of opioids (Singh et al., 2019). The authors emphasize that the economic situation is connected to the use of opioids, which could weaken the economy with legal aftermaths such as the mass incarceration rate.
Reference
Singh, G. K., Kim, I. E., Girmay, M., Perry, C., Daus, G. P., Vedamuthu, I. P., De Los Reyes, A. A., Ramey, C. T., Martin, E. K., & Allender, M. (2019). Opioid epidemic in the United States: Empirical trends, and a literature review of social determinants and epidemiological, pain management, and treatment patterns. International Journal of MCH and AIDS, 8(2), 89–100.