Morbidity in a Population of Low-Income, Female Users of MDMA and Other Drugs

Abstract

Few previous studies have reported on the overall health of drug-using women. To investigate this, 696 low-income women aged 18–31 were recruited in a cross-sectional study from gynecological care clinics in Texas between 2001 and 2003. Compared to exclusive marijuana users and non–drug users, women who used MDMA and those who used other illicit drugs but not MDMA reported more gynecological conditions, medical conditions, depressive symptoms, and physical somatic complaints. We concluded that young, low-income women who used more than one illicit drug experience significantly more physical and psychological morbidity. Generalization of this study results may be limited to young women with low income but not to other populations.

Keywords:

• MDMA
• comorbidity
• health disparities
• women's health

Notes

¹ The reader is referred to Hills's criteria for causation which were developed in order to help assist researchers and clinicians determine if risk factors were causes of a particular disease or outcomes or merely associated (Hill, A. B. (1965). The environment and disease: associations or causation? Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 58:295–300.). Editor's note.