4.7 Article

Social isolation, residential stability, and opioid use disorder among older Medicare beneficiaries: Metropolitan and non-metropolitan county comparison

Journal

SOCIAL SCIENCE & MEDICINE
Volume 292, Issue -, Pages -

Publisher

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114605

Keywords

Opioid use disorder; Medicare; Social isolation; Residential stability; Metropolitan; non-metropolitan

Funding

  1. Interdisciplinary Network on Rural Population Health and Aging
  2. NIA [R24-AG065159]

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This study investigates the association between social isolation and opioid use disorder (OUD) prevalence among older Medicare beneficiaries, as well as the moderating effect of residential stability. The results suggest that social isolation is a significant factor for county-level OUD prevalence, regardless of metropolitan status. Moreover, high residential stability reinforces the positive relationship between social isolation and OUD prevalence, with a stronger association in metropolitan counties.
Research has shown that the prevalence of opioid use disorder (OUD) may rise substantially as society ages, but this issue receives the least attention in the literature. To address this gap, this study utilizes county-level data from multiple data sources (1) to investigate whether social isolation is associated with OUD prevalence among older Medicare beneficiaries, (2) to examine whether and how residential stability moderates the association between social isolation and OUD prevalence in US counties, and (3) to determine if there are any differences in these associations between metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties. The results show that social isolation is a significant factor for county-level OUD prevalence, regardless of metropolitan status. In addition, counties with high residential stability have low prevalence of OUD among older adults and this association is stronger in metropolitan than in non-metropolitan counties. Nonetheless, high levels of residential stability reinforce the positive relationship between social isolation and OUD prevalence. As a result, when developing policies and interventions aimed at reducing OUD among older adults, place of residence must be taken into account.

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