epidemic. noun

1. an outbreak of illness that spreads rapidly and impacts many people on the identical time : an outbreak of epidemic illness
2. an outbreak or product of sudden fast unfold, progress, or growth

The opioid epidemic is one which has affect numerous People. Information from 2019 exhibits that there have been over 15,500 deaths in 2019 resulting from opioids. Many epidemics are contagious in nature in that they unfold from one individual to a different. May one of these contagious illness mannequin be utilized to the opioid epidemic as properly?

Based on an NBER paper by Adamopoulou et al. (2024) the reply is ‘sure’. When an individual has a buddy that makes use of opioids, that particular person is more likely to make use of opioids.

Utilizing knowledge from the Nationwide Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Well being (Add Well being), adults aged 25-34 and their highschool finest associates are centered on. An instrumental variable approach is employed to estimate peer results in opioid misuse. Extreme accidents within the earlier 12 months are used as an instrument for opioid misuse so as to estimate the causal affect of somebody misusing opioids on the chance that their finest associates additionally misuse. The estimated peer results are important: Having a finest buddy with a reported severe damage within the earlier 12 months will increase the chance of personal opioid misuse by round 7 proportion factors in a inhabitants the place 17 p.c ever misuses opioids. The impact is pushed by people with out a school diploma and people who dwell in the identical county as their finest associates.

The complete working paper is right here. Hat tip to Marginal Revolution.