Two new research papers being published in The Lancet, which are part of a continuing project called the Global Burden of Disease, show that in 2010, mental health and substance abuse disorders were the leading causes of nonfatal health problems around the world. The study also found that opioid abuse, usually because of prescription drug dependence, causes the greatest health burden of all illicit and illegal drugs.
Of the reported 78,000 drug disorder deaths in 2010, about 55% are believed to be the result of opioid abuse and dependence, according to the studies.
In the first study, researchers from the United States and Australia examined 187 countries’ data on 20 mental health and substance abuse issues to determine how prevalent these problems are. When they looked into the details, 23% of the global disease burden could be traced back to mental health and substance abuse problems.
Some difficulty in researching the problems came about because in deaths related to substance abuse, the physical cause of death was listed, but not the substance abuse specifically.
“Mental and substance use disorders are major contributors to the global burden of disease and their contribution is rising, especially in developing countries. Cost-effective interventions are available for most disorders but adequate financial and human resources are needed to deliver these interventions,” study leader Harvey Whiteford, of the Queensland Centre for Medical Health Research at the University of Queensland in Australia, said in a journal news release.
“Despite the personal and economic costs, treatment rates for people with mental and substance use disorders are low, and even in developed countries, treatment is typically provided many years after the disorder begins,” Whiteford pointed out. “In all countries, stigma about mental and substance use disorders constrain the use of available resources as do inefficiencies in the distribution of funding and interventions. If the burden of mental and substance use disorders is to be reduced, mental health policy and services research will need to identify more effective ways to provide sustainable mental health services, especially in resource-constrained environments,” he concluded.
The second study, which examined opioid abuse specifically, showed that opioid abuse and addiction, from prescription drugs to heroin, caused the greatest health burden of all illegal drugs. According to the study’s findings, two-thirds of those abusing opioid drugs were men, mostly in the 20-29 age range. In that group, 64% were also addicted to marijuana and/or amphetamines, and 70% were dependent on both opioids and cocaine.
The opioid abuse health burden was primarily in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. The burden in developed countries was 20 times higher than in developing countries.
Additionally, the study found that marijuana was the most used drug, but only 13% of people who used marijuana were addicted to it or abused it. Smoking and alcohol abuse remain responsible for 10% of the total death and illness burden.
The study’s co-leader, Louisa Degenhardt, of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, pointed out in the news release that “much can be done to reduce this burden. Although we have fewer means of responding to some causes of burden, such as cocaine and amphetamine dependence, well-evaluated and effective interventions can substantially reduce two major causes of burden — opioid dependence and injecting drug use.”
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