Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

UD research tracking opiate use in Delaware

Delaware Public Media

 

Opiate use is not just an urban problem, according to preliminary findings from University of Delaware research.

 

Using a process called “geo-mapping” researchers are gathering neighborhood-level data to create a visual spread that identifies areas with higher opiate use.

 

 

What they’ve found so far is that opiate use stretches beyond Delaware’s urban hubs, according to Tammy Anderson, principal investigator of the opiate study and a UD professor of criminal justice and sociology. She said today’s opiate epidemic has a historical precedent - resembling one seen over 100 years ago.

 

“It is a combination of prescribed opiates and illegal heroin and fentanyl use,” Anderson said. “It’s a lot, you could say, like the problem at the turn of the century. That was a combination between prescribed opiates and heroin, but at the time, heroin was used in modern medicine.”

 

Opiate use has never been "just an urban problem," Anderson said, but has been perceived as such in some cases - specifically due to a heroin epidemic from the 1960s and 1970s.

 

"We have our attention spans focused on the '60s and '70s, a time during the Vietnam War and the great liberal social experiment," Anderson said. "There was a heroin epidemic at that time and the nature of that epidemic - its population was poor, urban and disproportionately minority. But if we opened our eyes and looked further back into history, the first opiate problem, prescribed opiates and heroin, that we actually had in this country, was at the turn of the 20th century with white females and Civil War veterans."

 

One specific opiate researchers are tracking is fentanyl, which can be used in treating chronic pain. Preliminary findings suggest fentanyl prescriptions were relatively stable from 2013 to 2014, while interest in obtaining other prescriptions rose.

 

The data also suggests that women are prescribed opiates at a higher rate than men, but national data shows higher overdose rates for men. Anderson said one possible explanation they could come across in future findings is that women could be prescribed opiates more often, but men are prescribed higher doses.

 

Data mapping the state to find opiate hotspots also allows researchers to identify cold spots - where opiate use is low. Anderson said lower rates could suggest a community is medically underserved. The data could also help researchers identify differences in risk between population subgroups, like men and women for example.

 

“By getting prescription data into the census track format, it allows us then to assess correlates of socioeconomic status so we can see whether the prescription rates are correlated with poverty, with household income, with education,” Anderson said. “So then eventually we can assess the who on an aggregate level.”

 

The need to know and understand where opiate use is present relates to a larger theme of overdose across the United States, Anderson said.

In 2014, 204 people died from suspected prescription drug overdoses in Delaware

 

“Like any other state in the US, we have a population that needs painkillers for various types of illnesses,” Anderson said. “And we don’t want painkillers - prescribed medications - to become a gateway drug to other more serious, dangerous and illegal drugs. We want painkillers that are prescribed medically to treat our illnesses.”

Dr. Karyl Ratay, the director of Delaware’s Division of Public Health, said prescription drug abuse actually kills more Delawareans per year than traffic accidents. In 2014, 204 people died from suspected prescription drug overdoses in the First State, she said.

“The addiction epidemic is taking a terrible toll on individuals and families, including accidental overdose deaths, hospitalizations, babies being born addicted, homelessness, families in crisis and many other challenges,” Ratay said.

Ratay said Delaware has taken a multi-faceted approach to combat the opiate epidemic: The state offers interventions to manage chronic pain; it equips medical providers with the tools and resources they need to properly prescribe patients medication; laws now limit the number of pills prescribed during emergencies.  

The geo-mapping project is just over a year old. Anderson said over the next four to five years, her team will build a data set to explain outcomes, drug treatment, drug overdose and crime, giving policymakers helpful information about community health.

Related Content