Several studies suggest the opioid crisis might be at least partly the result of widespread unemployment.
“In 2013, Kentucky, Rhode Island, and Nevada had some of the highest rates of death from opioid overdoses, and they also had some of the country’s highest unemployment rates. A series of studies suggests that this joblessness might have been—at least in part—contributing to the high rates of drug addiction.
A National Bureau of Economic Research paper I wrote about a few months ago found that as the unemployment rate increases by 1 percentage point in a given county, the opioid-death rate rises by 3.6 percent, and emergency-room visits rise by 7 percent. Now, a new meta-analysis lends further evidence to the idea that when people lose their jobs, they are more likely to turn to illegal drug use.”
Read more at: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/07/how-job-loss-can-lead-to-drug-use/534087/
Source: TheAtlantic.com – July 19, 2017
See related article – Opioids in the workplace: A bitter pill for business available at: http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20170723/news/634636/opioids-in-the-workplace-a-bitter-pill-for-business
