Economic Opportunity and the Opioid Crisis: Geographic and Economic Trends

The HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) has recently released a report which examines relationships between indicators of economic opportunity and the prevalence of prescription opioids and substance use in the United States. Some of the primary findings reflect that the prevalence of drug overdose deaths and opioid prescriptions has risen unevenly across the county, with rural areas more heavily impacted, and that poverty, unemployment rates and the employment-population ratio are highly correlated with the prevalence of prescription opioids and substance use measures.