Affiliation:
1. Institute for the Environment, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27517, USA
2. Samuel Centre for Social Connectedness, Montréal, QC H3A 0G4, Canada
3. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC 29425, USA
4. Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA
Abstract
Public works environmental disasters such as the Flint water crisis typically occur in disenfranchised communities with municipal disinvestment and co-occurring risks for poor mental health (poverty, social disconnection). We evaluated the long-term interplay of the crisis and these factors with substance use difficulties five years after the crisis onset. A household probability sample of 1970 adults living in Flint during the crisis was surveyed about their crisis experiences, use of substances since the crisis, and risk/resilience factors, including prior potentially traumatic event exposure and current social support. Analyses were weighted to produce population-representative estimates. Of the survey respondents, 17.0% reported that substance use since the crisis contributed to problems with their home, work, or social lives, including 11.2% who used despite a doctor’s warnings that it would harm their health, 12.3% who used while working or going to school, and 10.7% who experienced blackouts after heavy use. A total of 61.6% of respondents reported using alcohol since the crisis, 32.4% using cannabis, and 5.2% using heroin, methamphetamine, or non-prescribed prescription opioids. Respondents who believed that exposure to contaminated water harmed their physical health were more likely to use substances to the detriment of their daily lives (RR = 1.32, 95%CI: 1.03–1.70), as were respondents with prior potentially traumatic exposure (RR = 2.99, 95%CI: 1.90–4.71), low social support (RR = 1.94, 95%CI: 1.41–2.66), and PTSD and depression (RR’s of 1.78 and 1.49, respectively, p-values < 0.01). Public works disasters occurring in disenfranchised communities may have complex, long-term associations with substance use difficulties.
Funder
Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) award
NIEHS
Samuel Belonging Lab at the Samuel Center for Social Connectedness
Subject
Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis,Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
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