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，尽管处方药滥用迅速增长，但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是什么导致了处方药的滥用。我们提出了几个分析，将更好地向我们提供关于处方药物滥用的重要特征和一些处方药物滥用的原因的信息。首先，基于全国药物使用与健康调查的数据，我们将制作一份关于谁使用非医疗目的处方药的概况。我们将根据年龄(12-17岁、18-25岁和26岁以上)创建单独的个人资料。我们将审查的特征包括：就业状况、工作特征、健康、健康覆盖范围以及以前和现在使用非法药物。我们将研究这些用户资料是如何随着时间的推移而变化的，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依赖于非法药物的价格。这应该让我们了解，当非法药物过于昂贵或无法获得时，处方药是否被用作非法药物的补充，或者可能被用作替代药物。我们将确定非医疗用途的处方药是否比非法药物更能反映其他非法药物的价格。

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.