The epidemiology of substance use and disorders among middle aged and elderly community adults: national survey on drug use and health.
Date
2009-03
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Citation Stats
Attention Stats
Abstract
To estimate the prevalence, distribution, and correlates of drug use among middle aged and elderly persons in the United States and to compare with alcohol use in this age group.The 2005 and 2006 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health.A total of 10,953 subjects, age 50 years and older (6,717 subjects age 50-64 years and 4,236 subjects age 65+ years).Social and demographic variables detailed assessment of alcohol and drug use and disorders (marijuana, cocaine, inhalants, hallucinogens, methamphetamine, and heroin), major depression, and self-rated health.Nearly 60% of subjects used alcohol during the past year, 2.6% marijuana, and 0.41% cocaine. Both alcohol and drug use were far more frequent in subjects age 50-64 years and among men. Drug use, in contrast to alcohol use, was not associated with education but was more common among those not married and those with major depression. The prevalence of drug abuse or dependence in the 50+ age group was very low (only 0.33% for any abuse or dependence, 0.12% for marijuana abuse or dependence, and 0.18% for cocaine abuse or dependence). Nevertheless, the use of marijuana approached 4% in the 50-64 age group in comparison with 0.7% in the 65+ age group.Drug use is not prevalent, although use is much more common in the middle aged, suggesting that prevalence may rise substantially in the 65+ age group as the younger cohort ages.
Type
Department
Description
Provenance
Subjects
Citation
Permalink
Published Version (Please cite this version)
Publication Info
Blazer, Dan G, and Li-Tzy Wu (2009). The epidemiology of substance use and disorders among middle aged and elderly community adults: national survey on drug use and health. The American journal of geriatric psychiatry : official journal of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, 17(3). pp. 237–245. 10.1097/JGP.0b013e318190b8ef Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/20011.
This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
Collections
Endorsement
Review
Supplemented By
Referenced By
Scholars@Duke
Daniel German Blazer
I am currently semi-retired. Most of my recent work has been focused on roles with the National Academy of Medicine (former Institute of Medicine). I have chaired three committees during the past four years, one on the mental health and substance use workforce, one on cognitive aging, and one on hearing loss in adults. I currently also chair the Board on the Health of Select Populations for the National Academies.
In the past I have been PI on a number of research projects, including the Epidemiologic Catchment Area Study, and the Clinical Research Center for Late Life Depression. More recently I have been involved with five research projects. The first, the Established Populations for Epidemiologic Study of the Elderly (EPESE), included a study demonstrating that sleep complaints are more frequent in white compared to blacks, even when relevant demographic variables are controlled. In a second study, day-time napping was a significant predictor of mortality. A third study in the Piedmont of North Carolina revealed no difference in utilization or satisfaction with health services when urban elders were compared with rural elders. In a fourth study, self-rated health was not as strong a predictor of mortality, as has been found in previous studies, especially when controlling for important covariates.
A second research endeavor has been with the National Comorbidity Study. I led investigators who demonstrated that the prevalence of major depression is higher than previously estimated in national samples of persons between the ages of eighteen and fifty-five in the community and discussed the methodological issues that may contribute to this differing estimate. The risk-factor profile of pure major depression was compared with comorbid major depression. I will continue in this research during 1994/95 to look at Seasonal Affective Disorders (SAD).
I have also worked with my colleague Litzy Wu ScD in the study of substance use disorders and have published a number of papers related to substance use in the elderly. I also work closely with my colleague Celia Hybels, PhD looking at trajectories of depressive symptoms in older adults over time.
I spent considerable time during 1994/97 working on four books. I co-edited the second edition of Geriatric Psychiatry, to be published in the late winter of 1994 or early spring of 1995. I am working on a single author book, Freud vs. God: The End of the Debate/How Psychiatry Lost Its Soul and Christianity Lost Its Mind and on a research methods textbook for clinical psychiatry research. I have produced a second edition of Emotional Problems in Later Life. Since then our Textbook of Geriatric Psychiatry has gone through three additional editions and I published (based on my work during a sabbatical at the Center for Advanced Studies of Behavioral Sciences at Stanford) The Age of Melancholy (for which I received the Oscar Pfister Award from the American Psychiatric Association).
Li-Tzy Wu
Education/Training:
Pre- and post-doctoral training in mental health service research, psychiatric epidemiology (NIMH T32), and addiction epidemiology (NIDA T32) from Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health
Fellow of the NIH Summer Institute on the Design and Conduct of Randomized Clinical Trials
Unless otherwise indicated, scholarly articles published by Duke faculty members are made available here with a CC-BY-NC (Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial) license, as enabled by the Duke Open Access Policy. If you wish to use the materials in ways not already permitted under CC-BY-NC, please consult the copyright owner. Other materials are made available here through the author’s grant of a non-exclusive license to make their work openly accessible.