Copyright
©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Apr 16, 2023; 11(11): 2374-2385
Published online Apr 16, 2023. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v11.i11.2374
Published online Apr 16, 2023. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v11.i11.2374
Narrative minireview of the spatial epidemiology of substance use disorder in the United States: Who is at risk and where?
Diego F Cuadros, Digital Futures, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45206, United States
Adam J Branscum, Department of Biostatistics, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, United States
Claudia M Moreno, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, United States
Neil J MacKinnon, Department of Population Health Sciences, Augusta University, Augusta, GA 30912, United States
Author contributions: Cuadros DF contribute to the conceptual idea and wrote the first draft of the paper; Branscum AJ, Moreno CM, and MacKinnon NJ contributed to the conceptual idea and helped to write the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Diego F Cuadros, PhD, Associate Professor, Digital Futures, University of Cincinnati, 3080 Exploration Ave, Cincinnati, OH 45206, United States. diego.cuadros@uc.edu
Received: November 28, 2022
Peer-review started: November 28, 2022
First decision: January 19, 2023
Revised: January 31, 2023
Accepted: March 20, 2023
Article in press: March 20, 2023
Published online: April 16, 2023
Peer-review started: November 28, 2022
First decision: January 19, 2023
Revised: January 31, 2023
Accepted: March 20, 2023
Article in press: March 20, 2023
Published online: April 16, 2023
Core Tip
Core Tip: A comprehensive geographical analysis of the substance use disorder (SUD) epidemic is fundamental to understanding the dynamics of the epidemic and to identifying important factors associated with the spatial dynamics of the disease. The SUD epidemic is not uniformly distributed within the United States. The epidemic is characterized by the emergence of several micro-epidemics of different intensities across demographic groups and geographical locations across the country. Micro-targeting strategies based on understanding the spatial structure and the multifactorial nature of the addiction epidemic would facilitate the design of integrated preventive strategies for substance use in vulnerable populations in the United States.