Economic Determinants of Prescription Drug Abuse

描述（由申请人提供）：处方药是美国第二大滥用药物类别。尽管如此，尽管处方药滥用的迅速增长，这个问题在物质使用研究界基本上被忽视了。医学界需要更好地了解导致处方药滥用的原因。我们提出了一些分析，将更好地告知我们的处方药滥用者的重要特征和处方药滥用的原因。首先，根据全国药物使用和健康调查的数据，我们将制作一份非医疗目的使用处方药的概况。我们将根据年龄（12-17，18-25和26+）创建单独的配置文件。我们将研究的特征包括：就业状况，工作特征，健康，健康保险，以及以前和现在的非法药物使用。我们将研究这些用户资料如何随着时间的推移而变化，以及它们如何因种族/民族和性别而变化。拟议分析的第二部分是确定处方药滥用是否取决于非法药物的价格。这应当使我们了解处方药是作为非法药物的补充，还是在非法药物太贵或无法获得时作为替代品。我们将确定，与非法药物相比，非医疗用途处方药的使用是否对其他非法药物的价格更敏感。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Prescription drugs represent the second most abused class of drugs in the United States. Despite this, and despite the rapid growth of prescription drug abuse, the problem has largely been ignored in the substance-use research community. The medical community requires a better understanding of what contributes to the misuse of prescription drugs. We propose several analyses that will better inform us on the important characteristics of prescription drug abusers and some of the causes of prescription drug abuse. First, based on data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, we will produce a profile of who uses prescription drugs for non-medical purposes. We will create separate profiles according to age (12-17, 18-25, and 26+). Among the characteristics we will examine are: employment status, job characteristics, health, health coverage, and prior and current illicit drug use. We will examine how these profiles of users have changed over time and how they vary by race/ethnicity and gender. The second part of the proposed analysis is to determine whether prescription drug abuse is dependent on the prices of illicit drugs. This should inform us on whether prescription drugs are used as a complement to illicit drugs or perhaps a substitute when illicit drugs are too expensive or otherwise not available. We will determine whether the use of prescription drug for non-medical purposes is more responsive to the prices of other illicit drugs than are illicit drugs.