Drug use/abuse - an emerging risk factor for cardiovascular disease: Call to action

Issue: According to the 2010 and 2011 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, an estimated 22.6 million (8.9%) and 22.5 million (8.7%) Americans, respectively, 12 years or older were current (within the past 30 days) illicit drug users. Though studies have established an association between drug use/abuse and cardiovascular disease (CVD), drug use/abuse has still not been consistently included in the staple of CVD risk factors. Description: The research objectives were to: 1) provide empirical data that support the association between drug use/abuse and CVD; 2) explain the biological plausibility of the causal link between drug use/abuse and CVD; and 3) to Call to Action identifying drug use/abuse as an emerging risk factor for etiology and progression of CVD. Lessons learned: Emerging themes derived from this research were as follows: 1) there is definitely an association between drug use/abuse and CVD; 2) biological plausibility of the link between the illicit drug use/abuse and CVD is evident, though the causal link is still unclear; and 3) there is a public health need and significance to conducting additional studies that collect adequate data on drug use/abuse behavior in the study of the etiology and progression of CVD. Recommendations: Public Health professionals and health care practitioners need to be more proactive in examining the link between drug use/abuse and CVD.  Medical consequences of drug use/abuse should be expanded beyond sexual transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV/AIDS to include CVD. Finally, there should adequate assessment of drug use/abuse in CVD-related studies.