Exploring Prospective Predictors of Illicit Drug-Toxicity Deaths: Evidence From the General Social Survey

Abstract

Background: This study was based on over 30,000 U.S. respondents who completed General Social Surveys between 1978 and 2002. Aims: We approached these respondents prospectively, comparing and contrasting the responses of those who subsequently died from drug-poisonings (N = 135) with all respondents who were still living, N = 23,559. Method: We employed cross-tabulation and logistic regression analyses to test for statistically significant differences between drug-poisoning death casualties and all living respondents. Results: Consistent with past research findings, younger males were over-represented among drug death casualties. Also consistent with past studies, drug casualties showed evidence of perceiving themselves as socially marginalized in comparison to living respondents: More reported themselves in poorer health, as having been sexual minority members during the last 5 years, as having spent their younger years in homes where parents’ marriages disrupted, with fewer owning homes and feeling less satisfied about their financial situations. Conclusions: These exploratory findings obtained from a general population survey reinforce findings from clinical studies and help advance clinical assessments of potential at-risk individuals who might be identified sooner, lest they succumb to future fatal drug poisonings.

Keywords :

• illegal drug use
• drug poisoning deaths
• prospective study
• illicit drug mortality

THE AUTHORS

Dr. William Feigelman is Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Nassau Community College, Garden City, New York. Focusing on a wide variety of social science topics, ever since the late 1980s he has studied a number of drug-related issues: cigarette smoking, youth poly-drug use, drug use and gambling, premature deaths due to drug taking, and bereavement after drug-related deaths.

Dr. Zohn Rosen is currently a Lecturer of Epidemiology at New York Medical College. His research focuses on the health outcomes associated with social policies, social epidemiology, and nonmedical factors related to morbidity and mortality, and the effectiveness of wellness initiatives.

GLOSSARY

• Drug toxicity deaths: All poisoning deaths that would exclude alcohol poisonings, deaths from alcohol-related causes such a liver damages and deaths from vapor or gas inhalation.