{"id":79,"date":"2018-10-09T21:04:08","date_gmt":"2018-10-09T21:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/?p=79"},"modified":"2018-10-29T20:18:09","modified_gmt":"2018-10-29T20:18:09","slug":"curbing-rural-drug-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/curbing-rural-drug-abuse\/","title":{"rendered":"Curbing Rural Drug Abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As the opioid crisis continues to plow through the Midwest, devastating rural communities, Nebraska sociologist Kirk Dombrowski has emerged as a leading researcher in rural drug use. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because previous drug epidemics \u2013 \u201870s speedballs, \u201880s cocaine and \u201890s crack \u2013 were urban phenomena, research and treatment have concentrated on urban drug addicts. Dombrowski\u2019s focus on understanding the unique characteristics of rural drug use is helping inform prevention and treatment strategies in hard-hit rural areas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rural drug users have less access to drugs than urbanites so they tend to take whatever drug is at hand, be it opioid, alcohol or methamphetamine. This polysubstance use complicates prevention and treatment, said Dombrowski, John Bruhn Professor of Sociology and director of the Minority Health Disparities Initiative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His team uses social network analysis to study how rural drug users\u2019 social lives influence the spread of drugs and associated diseases, such as hepatitis C and HIV, through needle sharing. Computers help analyze survey and other data to understand how drug users form social relationships and how their networks evolve over time, particularly in relation to risky behavior. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stigma makes surveying drug users challenging, requiring novel methods. For example, to more accurately estimate population numbers, the team is surveying random Nebraska residents about their anonymous friends\u2019 and associates\u2019 drug use rather than their own. Statistical methods scale up the network data to provide state-level estimates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Kirk Dombrowski<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Midwest\u2019s crisis is probably not that different than rural opioid use in a lot of places, but it\u2019s hitting a medical and policy scenario that\u2019s unprepared.\u201d<\/p>Kirk Dombrowski <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

They\u2019re also developing cellphone software that uses GPS and artificial intelligence to tailor study participants\u2019 questions based on responses and proximity to other users or known drug locations, providing much more data. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team\u2019s counterintuitive findings suggest that rural people have much larger social networks than urbanites, granting them greater access to drugs. They also have fewer risk reduction options, such as clean syringes, overdose reversing drugs and treatment centers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By identifying risky behaviors, affiliation characteristics and other social attributes, their research provides insight into how addiction and disease spread. Their work suggests the need to increase prevention services in rural areas to reduce overdoses and disease transmission, particularly in the Midwest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Midwest\u2019s crisis is probably not that different than rural opioid use in a lot of places, but it\u2019s hitting a medical and policy scenario that\u2019s unprepared,\u201d Dombrowski said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the opioid crisis continues to plow through the Midwest, devastating rural communities, Nebraska sociologist Kirk Dombrowski has emerged as a leading researcher in rural drug use. Because previous drug epidemics \u2013 \u201870s speedballs, \u201880s cocaine and \u201890s crack \u2013 were urban phenomena, research and treatment have concentrated on urban drug addicts. Dombrowski\u2019s focus on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[98,96,99,91,93,94,72,95,97,92],"class_list":["post-79","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biomedicine-and-human-health","tag-addiction","tag-biomedicine-and-human-health","tag-health","tag-kirk-dombrowski","tag-minority-health-disparities-initiative","tag-opioid-crisis","tag-public-policy","tag-rural-issues","tag-social-network-analysis","tag-sociology"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":423,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions\/423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}