[ad_1]
TUESDAY, Jan. 29, 2019 (HealthDay News) – A new study finds that areas of the United States with high unemployment rates and few mental health services have higher rates of opioid-exposed newborns. l & # 39; uterus.
Researchers badyzed data on 6.3 million births between 2009 and 2015 in 580 counties in Florida, Kentucky, Mbadachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, New York, Tennessee and Washington.
The study found that in countries with high long-term unemployment, 20 out of 1,000 newborns were exposed to opioids in the uterus (neonatal abstinence syndrome). This compares to 7.8 per 1,000 births in counties with the lowest unemployment rate.
The unemployment rate in countries with a shortage of mental health workers was 14 cases per 1,000 births, compared to 1.6 cases for 1 other.
There was no link between rates of neonatal abstinence syndrome and the availability of health care providers, according to the study published Jan. 30 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Nationally, the rate of neonatal abstinence syndrome has increased from 1.2 per 1,000 births to the hospital in 2000 to 8 per 1,000 births in 2014. In 2014, mean, a baby was born every 15 minutes with neonatal abstinence syndrome.
This study is the first of its kind, according to researchers at RAND Corp. and the Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
"This discovery should open our eyes to the social complexities that lead newborns to treatment for drug withdrawal in hospitals in our country," said Dr. Stephen Patrick, lead author, in a RAND press release.
Patrick is director of the Vanderbilt Center for Child Health Policy in Nashville, Tennessee.
"The opioid crisis is not just a health problem, it's also a social problem and solutions will need to be made to address the social needs of communities as well as the health care needs." ", he added.
Dr. Bradley Stein, lead author of the study, said the researchers knew that people with mental health problems were more likely to use or depend on opioids.
"Our findings suggest that until we can provide better access to effective mental health care, we face a tough battle to effectively resolve the opioid crisis," Stein said in a statement. press. Stein is the director of RAND's opioid policy center.
More information
The National Library of Medicine in the United States has more about neonatal abstinence syndrome.
SOURCE: RAND Corp., press release, January 29, 2019
[ad_2]Source link
