5 ms·

It seems that they are unable or unwilling to separate deaths due to mental disorders from substance abuse. Probably due to the thinking that anyone who dies fr

by CoryG89 10y ago

It seems that they are unable or unwilling to separate deaths due to mental disorders from substance abuse. Probably due to the thinking that anyone who dies from a substance abuse issue is dealing with a mental disorder. While this may be true some of the time, I'm not sure that it's clear that it is always the case. And even if it was, substance abuse deaths would just be a subset of deaths from mental disorders, still would seem misleading to lump them together.

hasbroslasher 10y ago
Substance abuse is generally regarded as a form of mental illness and is often comorbid with depression or anxiety disorders. It's not totally unfair to lump them, after all it is way easier do die from dangerous drugs than (purely) from a mental illness. That might give the reader some weird impressions or distort the problem to lean more heavily on the typical "War on Drugs" logic. I think it's significantly better for public health policy making to consider substance abuse a mental health issue than it is to consider it a weird personal problem or a social variable that we have no control over.
draw_down 10y ago
That's a valid point, but the number tripled. Is that really down to statistical methods, or is there actually a huge problem which, admittedly, may not be measured perfectly?
- CoryG89 10y ago
  How much wider of a net are we casting when we consider what counts as a "death due to mental illness or substance abuse" compared to 25 years ago? I don't doubt it may have gone up, but I do doubt that these numbers tell us as much as some might think.
anigbrowl 10y ago
You make a good point. While drug abuse is often an attempt at self-medication for untreated mental illness (or illness which responds poorly to pharmaceutical industry offerings), it's a mark of the overall social disregard for both mental illness and drug use that this isn't broken down more carefully. On the mental illness side I'd expect to see things get worse from both years of overseas wars (often fought by people from the lowest socioeconomic quintile) and recessionary suffering and subsequent failure to recover. On the drugs side, fentanyl has turned the calculus of dosage, lethality, and morbidity upside down in pursuit of large profits, as much for corporate suppliers as criminal ones. expect all this to get significantly worse rather than better if the incoming administration and Congress pursue their stated goal of repealing the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare without a clear alternative ready to go. Last discussion I heard suggested that they might need 2-3 years to agree on a replacement health coverage system and that the problem was likely to be thrown back in the lap of the states for the time being.

by CoryG89 10y ago

hasbroslasher 10y ago

Substance abuse is generally regarded as a form of mental illness and is often comorbid with depression or anxiety disorders. It's not totally unfair to lump them, after all it is way easier do die from dangerous drugs than (purely) from a mental illness. That might give the reader some weird impressions or distort the problem to lean more heavily on the typical "War on Drugs" logic. I think it's significantly better for public health policy making to consider substance abuse a mental health issue than it is to consider it a weird personal problem or a social variable that we have no control over.

draw_down 10y ago

That's a valid point, but the number tripled. Is that really down to statistical methods, or is there actually a huge problem which, admittedly, may not be measured perfectly?

CoryG89 10y ago
How much wider of a net are we casting when we consider what counts as a "death due to mental illness or substance abuse" compared to 25 years ago? I don't doubt it may have gone up, but I do doubt that these numbers tell us as much as some might think.

anigbrowl 10y ago

You make a good point. While drug abuse is often an attempt at self-medication for untreated mental illness (or illness which responds poorly to pharmaceutical industry offerings), it's a mark of the overall social disregard for both mental illness and drug use that this isn't broken down more carefully. On the mental illness side I'd expect to see things get worse from both years of overseas wars (often fought by people from the lowest socioeconomic quintile) and recessionary suffering and subsequent failure to recover. On the drugs side, fentanyl has turned the calculus of dosage, lethality, and morbidity upside down in pursuit of large profits, as much for corporate suppliers as criminal ones. expect all this to get significantly worse rather than better if the incoming administration and Congress pursue their stated goal of repealing the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare without a clear alternative ready to go. Last discussion I heard suggested that they might need 2-3 years to agree on a replacement health coverage system and that the problem was likely to be thrown back in the lap of the states for the time being.