Below are the most recent reports and articles from the RAND Drug Policy Research Center. Please visit our RAND Topics pages for a complete research archive on these and other drug policy-related research topics.
RAND Topic Pages: Substance UseThe growing use of medication treatment for opioid use disorder in the West Virginia Medicaid expansion population provides an opportunity to reduce overdose deaths.
This analysis found a significant association among higher long-term unemployment, higher mental health clinician shortage areas, and higher county-level rates of neonatal abstinence syndrome.
Although many states have passed some type of law affecting naloxone availability, only laws allowing direct dispensing by pharmacists appear to be useful. Communities in which access to naloxone is improved should prepare for increases in nonfatal overdoses and link these individuals to effective treatment.
Fewer than 10% of West Virginia Medicaid enrollees received medication for opioid use disorder after a non-fatal overdose, making it an opportunity to increase treatment for opioid use disorder and co-occurring mental health conditions.
Using national data, we test for age differences in substance use disparities among LGB adults. Contrary to hypothesized decreased minority stress in recent generations, we find that disparities were not systematically smaller in younger age groups.
Newborns exposed to opioids before birth can experience withdrawal symptoms known as neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS). From 2009 to 2015, the average NAS rate per 1,000 hospital births across eight states rose from about six to more than 25.
RAND researchers analyzed the formulas for distributing funds to states under three block grants for services related to mental health, substance abuse, and homelessness (unchanged since 1992) to determine whether they should be modified.
Opioid dosage and use increased annually for individuals with all levels of chronic pain; those with high-impact pain had average dosing 5.5 times higher than those with low-impact pain.
This study highlights factors that affect Community Health Centers' ability to reduce infectious disease transmission related to the opioid epidemic. The emphasis is on rural areas, which have suffered disproportionately from the opioid epidemic and lack resources to address the complex social and medical issues related to opioid use, opioid use disorder, and risk for infectious diseases.
Most of the publicly-funded SUD-treatment programs in this study reported delivering prevention and early-intervention services for children of their adult clients.
The objectives of this study were to describe quality of care for unhealthy alcohol use among patients visiting primary care settings and to determine whether better quality of alcohol care was linked to reduced alcohol consumption 6 months later.
Morphine equivalent daily dose thresholds are a promising policy tool, but there is a lack of consensus about how to use the thresholds and what the threshold level should be.
Substance use prevention efforts that seek to counter peer pressures should begin prior to middle school and span high school, and address the role of peer and family environments.
The formulas for distributing funds to states under three block grants (the Community Mental Health Services Block Grant, the Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Block Grant, and the Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness program) have not been updated since 1992. RAND researchers conducted this congressionally mandated study to determine whether the formulas should be modified.
LGB opioid disparities varied significantly by sexual identity &gender. All LGB subgroups had elevated lifetime pain reliever misuse. Bisexual women uniquely had elevated OUD rates and lifetime injection heroin use.
Rates of neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), which occurs in newborns who were exposed to opioids in the womb, have increased dramatically over the past decade. This web-based tool displays the rates of NAS from 2009 to 2015 by county in eight states: Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington.
The 2010 reformulation of Oxycontin to prevent abuse of the drug (by making it crush-proof and therefore impossible to dissolve in liquid) had the unintended effect of driving some users to switch to heroin, which contributed to a dramatic rise in Hepatitis C.
American Indian/Alaska Native adolescents in this study used alcohol or other drugs at rates similar to those found in national surveys and rates of risky sexual behavior were also comparable to national data.
This article addresses the use of a variety of nonherbal CIH therapies among any large patient population having chronic pain by exploring the frequency and predictors of CIH therapy use among a national population of VHA users with chronic musculoskeletal pain.
Chronic pain is prevalent among Veterans in general, but especially among younger Veterans, including participants in Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn. Musculoskeletal pain is the most common type of chronic pain. This pain also often co-occurs with conditions such as anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and substance abuse.
