IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/coecpo/v39y2021i4p737-759.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What about the children? How opioid use affects child well‐being

Author

Listed:
  • Lindsey Rose Bullinger
  • Benjamin C. Ward

Abstract

We study the relationship between opioid use and child well‐being. We combine data on legal opioid prescriptions, opioid‐related emergency department visits, and opioid‐involved mortality with foster care entrance records and child maltreatment reports. We find that increases in opioid‐related mortality and emergency department visits are associated with increased foster care entry, particularly among young children. We find no significant relationship between legal opioid distribution quantities and home removals. Finally, we examine the relationship between opioid‐related public policies and child welfare outcomes, finding mixed relationships between various policies and removal from the home.

Suggested Citation

  • Lindsey Rose Bullinger & Benjamin C. Ward, 2021. "What about the children? How opioid use affects child well‐being," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 39(4), pages 737-759, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:coecpo:v:39:y:2021:i:4:p:737-759
    DOI: 10.1111/coep.12523
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/coep.12523
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/coep.12523?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hollingsworth, Alex & Ruhm, Christopher J. & Simon, Kosali, 2017. "Macroeconomic conditions and opioid abuse," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 222-233.
    2. William N. Evans & Ethan M. J. Lieber & Patrick Power, 2019. "How the Reformulation of OxyContin Ignited the Heroin Epidemic," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(1), pages 1-15, March.
    3. Abby Alpert & David Powell & Rosalie Liccardo Pacula, 2018. "Supply-Side Drug Policy in the Presence of Substitutes: Evidence from the Introduction of Abuse-Deterrent Opioids," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 1-35, November.
    4. Anca M. Grecu & Dhaval M. Dave & Henry Saffer, 2019. "Mandatory Access Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs and Prescription Drug Abuse," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(1), pages 181-209, January.
    5. Scott Cunningham & Keith Finlay, 2013. "Parental Substance Use And Foster Care: Evidence From Two Methamphetamine Supply Shocks," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(1), pages 764-782, January.
    6. Lindo, Jason M. & Schaller, Jessamyn & Hansen, Benjamin, 2018. "Caution! Men not at work: Gender-specific labor market conditions and child maltreatment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 77-98.
    7. Ghertner, Robin & Waters, Annette & Radel, Laura & Crouse, Gilbert, 2018. "The role of substance use in child welfare caseloads," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 83-93.
    8. Rania Gihleb & Osea Giuntella & Ning Zhang, 2022. "The Effect of Mandatory-Access Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs on Foster Care Admissions," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 57(1), pages 217-240.
    9. Bullinger, Lindsey Rose & Wing, Coady, 2019. "How many children live with adults with opioid use disorder?," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 1-1.
    10. Anne Case & Angua Deaton, 2015. "Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife among white non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st century," Working Papers 15078.full.pdf, Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Research Program in Development Studies..
    11. Gihleb, Rania & Giuntella, Osea & Zhang, Ning, 2018. "The Effects of Mandatory Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs on Foster Care Admissions," IZA Discussion Papers 11470, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Thomas C. Buchmueller & Colleen Carey, 2018. "The Effect of Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs on Opioid Utilization in Medicare," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 77-112, February.
    13. Jill Horwitz & Corey S. Davis & Lynn S. McClelland & Rebecca S. Fordon & Ellen Meara, 2018. "The Problem of Data Quality in Analyses of Opioid Regulation: The Case of Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs," NBER Working Papers 24947, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Jessica Y. Ho, 2017. "The Contribution of Drug Overdose to Educational Gradients in Life Expectancy in the United States, 1992–2011," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(3), pages 1175-1202, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bullinger, Lindsey Rose & Fleckman, Julia M. & Fong, Kelley, 2021. "Proximity to SNAP-authorized retailers and child maltreatment reports," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 42(C).
    2. Atkins, Danielle N. & Durrance, Christine Piette, 2021. "The impact of state-level prenatal substance use policies on infant foster care entry in the United States," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    3. William Schneider & Lindsey Rose Bullinger & Kerri M. Raissian, 2022. "How does the minimum wage affect child maltreatment and parenting behaviors? An analysis of the mechanisms," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 1119-1154, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gihleb, Rania & Giuntella, Osea & Zhang, Ning, 2020. "Prescription drug monitoring programs and neonatal outcomes," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    2. Simone Balestra & Helge Liebert & Nicole Maestas & Tisamarie B. Sherry, 2021. "Behavioral Responses to Supply-Side Drug Policy During the Opioid Epidemic," NBER Working Papers 29596, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Cotti, Chad D. & Gordanier, John M. & Ozturk, Orgul D., 2020. "The relationship of opioid prescriptions and the educational performance of children," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).
    4. Lucy Xiaolu Wang, 2021. "The complementarity of drug monitoring programs and health IT for reducing opioid‐related mortality and morbidity," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(9), pages 2026-2046, September.
    5. Buckles, Kasey & Evans, William N. & Lieber, Ethan M.J., 2023. "The drug crisis and the living arrangements of children," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    6. Aliprantis, Dionissi & Fee, Kyle & Schweitzer, Mark E., 2023. "Opioids and the labor market," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    7. Janet Currie & Hannes Schwandt, 2020. "The Opioid Epidemic Was Not Primarily Caused by Economic Distress But by Other Factors that Can be More Readily Addressed," Working Papers 2020-25, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    8. David Beheshti, 2019. "Adverse health effects of abuse‐deterrent opioids: Evidence from the reformulation of OxyContin," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(12), pages 1449-1461, December.
    9. Janet Currie & Hannes Schwandt, 2021. "The Opioid Epidemic Was Not Caused by Economic Distress but by Factors That Could Be More Rapidly Addressed," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 695(1), pages 276-291, May.
    10. Ruhm, Christopher J., 2019. "Drivers of the fatal drug epidemic," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 25-42.
    11. David Cho & Daniel I. García & Joshua Montes & Alison E. Weingarden, 2021. "Labor Market Effects of the Oxycodone-Heroin Epidemic," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2021-025, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    12. Claudio Deiana & Ludovica Giua & Roberto Nisticò, 2024. "Opium Price Shocks and Prescription Opioids in the USA," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 86(3), pages 449-484, June.
    13. Molly Schnell & Janet Currie, 2018. "Addressing the Opioid Epidemic: Is There a Role for Physician Education?," American Journal of Health Economics, MIT Press, vol. 4(3), pages 383-410, Summer.
    14. Deiana, Claudio & Giua, Ludovica & Nistico, Roberto, 2019. "The Economics behind the Epidemic: Afghan Opium Price and Prescription Opioids in the US," IZA Discussion Papers 12872, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Ahammer, Alexander & Halla, Martin, 2020. "The Intergenerational Transmission of Opioid Dependence: Evidence from Administrative Data," IZA Discussion Papers 13395, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Daniele, Gianmarco & Le Moglie, Marco & Masera, Federico, 2023. "Pains, guns and moves: The effect of the U.S. opioid epidemic on Mexican migration," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    17. Gal Wettstein, 2019. "Health insurance and opioid deaths: Evidence from the Affordable Care Act young adult provision," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(5), pages 666-677, May.
    18. Gihleb, Rania & Giuntella, Osea & Zhang, Ning, 2018. "The Effects of Mandatory Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs on Foster Care Admissions," IZA Discussion Papers 11470, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Shishir Shakya & Collin Hodges, 2023. "Must‐access prescription drug monitoring programs and retail opioid sales," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 41(1), pages 146-165, January.
    20. Thomas C. Buchmueller & Colleen M. Carey & Giacomo Meille, 2020. "How well do doctors know their patients? Evidence from a mandatory access prescription drug monitoring program," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(9), pages 957-974, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:coecpo:v:39:y:2021:i:4:p:737-759. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/weaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.