Growth in Lifetime Prevalence of Substance Abuse among U.S. Adults with Disabilities Compared to the Increase in Substance Abuse in the General Residential Population without Disabilities: A Longitudinal Study of Self-Reported Data

In partial replication of a groundbreaking epidemiological study by Gilson, Chilcoat, and Stapleton (1996), we examined longitudinal data from the 1979 – 2001 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA) and its successor, the 2002-2007 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) to compare the self-reported lifetime prevalence of: marijuana use, use of certain illicit drugs (cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine), and abuse of prescription drugs – for adults with disabilities, by age group and by average age, compared with the nondisabled adult residential population, as well as (where available) abuse of 4 specific classes of prescription drugs (analgesics, sedatives, stimulants, and tranquilizers) for all adults of average age with disabilities compared with all non-disabled adults.

We observed changes over time in patterns of SA in the general population and among adults with disabilities, where disability was defined as: 1) reported a work disability, 2) age under 65 (non-aged) and Medicare-eligible, or 3) adults under 65 receiving SSI benefits (for poor and disabled). Findings of this investigation are generally in line with previous findings that SA among individuals with disabilities is markedly greater than among the nondisabled, non-institutionalized general population. However, overall increases in lifetime prevalence of SA among both disabled and non-disabled populations over this 28-year time span were striking both in volume and type, indicating a greater need for targeted SA prevention efforts and an increased demand for SA treatment services, availability of which is already lagging demand, for accessible SA treatment slots in particular. [See Krahn et al., 2006]