epidemic. noun
- an outbreak of illness that spreads shortly and impacts many people on the identical time : an outbreak of epidemic illness
- an outbreak or product of sudden fast unfold, development, or improvement
The opioid epidemic is one which has influence a lot of People. Information from 2019 exhibits that there have been over 15,500 deaths in 2019 because of opioids. Many epidemics are contagious in nature in that they unfold from one individual to a different. Might this kind of contagious illness mannequin be utilized to the opioid epidemic as effectively?
In line with an NBER paper by Adamopoulou et al. (2024) the reply is ‘sure’. When an individual has a pal that makes use of opioids, that particular person is more likely to make use of opioids.
Utilizing knowledge from the Nationwide Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Well being (Add Well being), adults aged 25-34 and their highschool greatest buddies are centered on. An instrumental variable approach is employed to estimate peer results in opioid misuse. Extreme accidents within the earlier 12 months are used as an instrument for opioid misuse as a way to estimate the causal influence of somebody misusing opioids on the chance that their greatest buddies additionally misuse. The estimated peer results are vital: Having a greatest pal with a reported critical harm within the earlier 12 months will increase the chance of personal opioid misuse by round 7 share factors in a inhabitants the place 17 p.c ever misuses opioids. The impact is pushed by people and not using a school diploma and people who stay in the identical county as their greatest buddies.
The total working paper is right here. Hat tip to Marginal Revolution.