Development and validation of a community-level social determinants of health index for drug overdose deaths in the HEALing Communities Study.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Social determinants of health (SDoH), such as socioeconomic status, education level, and food insecurity, are believed to influence the opioid crisis. While global SDoH indices such as the CDC's Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) and Area Deprivation Index (ADI) combine the explanatory power of multiple social factors for understanding health outcomes, they may be less applicable to the specific challenges of opioid misuse and associated outcomes. This study develops a novel index tailored to opioid misuse outcomes, tests the efficacy of this index in predicting drug overdose deaths across contexts, and compares the explanatory power of this index to other SDoH indices.

Methods

Focusing on four HEALing Communities Study (HCS) states (Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Y

SUBMITTER: Cesare N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11298214 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature