A 50-state survey co-led by Northeastern University’s David Lazer reveals that one in four Americans say they know someone who struggles with opioid addiction, while one in seven knows multiple people. The statistics are even more alarming in poor, white, rural communities, with nearly half of West Virginians reporting that they know at least one person addicted to opioids. The purpose of the survey was to show the indirect impact of the opioid epidemic that resulted in 107,543 people in the U.S. dying of overdoses last year, says Lazer, one of the principal investigators of the Civic Health and Institutions Project (CHIP50). As awful as the death toll is, “that’s not the whole story,” he says. “This is the sort of pain that radiates out through the social network.”
“You have parents in their 60s who have kids addicted to opioids. You have kids being raised by parents who are addicted or siblings who are trying to take care of their suffering brothers and sisters,” says Lazer, a university distinguished professor of political science and computer science at Northeastern. According to the survey, which was based on sampling in every state and Washington, D.C., 23% of respondents know at least one person with opioid addiction, including 3% who knew more than 10 individuals who are struggling.
