Online Program

331815
Functional drug use defined: A latent class analysis


Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Eric T. Roberts, MPH, New York University Global Institute of Public Health, New York, NY
Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH, School of Public Health, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, MA
David Vlahov, RN, PhD, FAAN, Community Health Systems, UCSF, School of Nursing, San Francisco, CA
Danielle Ompad, PhD, College of Global Public Health, New York University, New York, NY
Background: Drug use is associated with consequences, however not all use is harmful. Functional drug users are persons with moderate, non-abusive drug use able to meet social expectations. We use latent class analysis to determine to what extent patterns of functional and non-functional drug use exist.

Methods: Data come from the IMPACT study in New York City. Our final model included measures of drug use behaviors (frequency of cocaine, crack and heroin use; use of non-prescribed opiates and club drugs; injection), drug use harms (interference with regular activities due to cocaine, crack or heroin use; failure to meet expectations due to alcohol use; overdoses; HIV and Hepatitis B serostatus) and social expectations (did not have enough money to buy food, and main source of income).

Results: Model fit statistics indicated a 5-class solution fit best. Class 1 was characterized as non-drug users, and class 2 as former-drug users. Participants in class 3 report low frequency of cocaine and crack use, low levels of interference from their use and moderate success meeting social expectations. Participants in class 4 report low frequency heroin use, and non-prescribed opiate use; a moderate number experience interference from their use and moderate success meeting social expectations. Class 5 were non-functional drug users reporting high frequency cocaine, crack and heroin use, use of non-prescribed opiates and club drugs, high levels of interference and failure to meet social expectations.

Conclusions: We find evidence of functional and non-functional drug use; identifying drivers of these patterns may improve population health.

Learning Areas:

Epidemiology
Social and behavioral sciences

Learning Objectives:
Explain the difference between functional and non-functional drug use. Discuss the implications of functional and non-functional drug use has for the War on Drugs.

Keyword(s): Drug Abuse, Epidemiology

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am a doctoral student in epidemiology examining functional drug use in my dissertation. I have been interested in, and published on, drug use research for over 8 years. I received pre-doctoral behavioral science training in drug use research at the National Development Research Institutes Inc.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.