A hard pill to swallow: Social capital, opiates, and health outcomes in the United States

Over the last decade, the USA experienced an unprecedented opioid crisis. While there are myriad causes for this crisis, here we examine how social capital shapes the public’s demand for opioids and the government’s responses to the crisis. First, we posit that communities with higher levels of social capital are associated with lower rates of opioid use/abuse. Second, we posit that higher levels of social capital will be associated with a more robust public response in providing necessary resources to address substance abuse resulting in lower rates of drug-related deaths. Using county-level data from the USA, we find support for an indirect relationship where social capital is associated with higher levels of community support for drug treatment, which, in turn, is associated with lower drug-related deaths and deaths of despair.