SAMHSA Releases 2018 National Survey on Drug Use and Health
The United States saw a significant decrease in prescription opioid use among all age groups and a significant increase in serious mental illness last year, according to the 2018
National Survey on Drug Use and Health that the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) released this week.
In the report, SAMHSA said the total number of Americans with opioid use disorder decreased to 2.0 million in 2018 from 2.1 million in 2017. The agency found that the majority of people continue to obtain prescription opioids from friends, relatives, and healthcare providers/prescribers, which the agency said underscores the need for ongoing education of practitioners, appropriate pain management, and partnerships with states to monitor opioid analgesic prescribing.
Heroin use disorder also dropped significantly compared with 2017, but remained steady among people aged 26 and older, the study showed.
Meanwhile, serious mental illness rose among both young adults (ages 18-25) and adults (ages 26-49) last year, and SAMHSA reported significant increases in suicidality in the 18-25 group. SAMHSA found that use of one substance—alcohol or other illicit substances—is strongly correlated with polysubstance use and with major depression and serious mental illness, which SAMHSA said highlights the need to screen for all substances and mental disorders.
Report Shows Americans Spend Almost as Much on Illicit Drugs as Alcohol
Researchers from RAND Corp. estimate that Americans spent between $120 billion and $145 billion on cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine between 2006 and 2016, while another analysis showed U.S. spending on alcohol in 2017 was about $158 billion.
Released this week,
What America’s Users Spend on Illegal Drugs, 2006-2016 examines how many people use cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine in the United States; how much they’re using; how much money they’re spending on these substances; and how the quantities have changed over time.
“To better understand changes in drug use outcomes and the effects of policies, policymakers need to know what is happening in markets for these substances,” Greg Midgette, the study’s lead author and assistant professor at the University of Maryland, said in an announcement about the study. “But it is challenging to generate these estimates, and given that critical data sources have been eliminated, it will likely be harder to generate these figures in the future.”
Study Says Former Cigarette Smokers Are Smoking Marijuana and Binge Drinking More
Rates of cigarette smoking have decreased, but new research shows that cannabis and alcohol use among former smokers has increased, according to a new
study in the
American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
According to the findings, about 44 percent of people who smoked previously were no longer smoking in 2002, and that number rose to 50 percent in 2016. Data from more than 67,000 former smokers between 2005 and 2016, meanwhile, show that marijuana use over the previous year nearly doubled to about 10 percent from a little more than 5 percent. Similarly, rates of binge drinking during the previous month also increased to more than 22 percent from about 17 percent.
“It is conceivable that the prevalence of depression and substance use problems may shift over time among former smokers,” the study said. “If people who stop smoking cigarettes substitute other forms of substance use, the overall health benefits of cigarette cessation may be decreased owing to the negative consequences of use of these drugs as well as consequent relapse to smoking cigarettes.”
HRSA Releases Dashboards on Health Professions Training Programs
The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) this week released interactive
dashboards that show aggregated performance data for HRSA-awarded health professions training grants from the academic year 2012-2013 to the present.
These data are meant to provide insight into the distribution of HRSA’s healthcare providers who help and work in underserved communities.
The dashboards offer information on training programs, demographics, health professional shortage areas, medically underserved areas, and more
HRSA Announces Funding Opportunity for Rural Health Network Development Program
HRSA said this week it expects to spend about $13 million on nearly 50 public or not-for-profit, private organizations to support integrated, rural healthcare networks.
The agency’s Rural Health Network Development Program has previously funded networks that focused on coordinated care for patients, chronic disease management, telehealth, and behavioral health improvement.
Details about the program and requirements for applications are available
here, and the deadline is Nov. 25.
National Consortium of Telehealth Resource Centers Webinar to Focus on Mental Health
Speakers from the Telehealth Resource Centers and a rural federally qualified health center will present a webinar next week about how telehealth can help deliver mental and behavioral health services.
Specifically, the presentation will explain how to integrate telemental/behavioral health into organizations and will provide stories from clinics that have done this successfully.
The webinar is scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 27 at 4 p.m. ET. Click
here to register.
For questions or comments about CEO Update, please contact Jessica Zigmond.