A new report claims that Evansville is in the Top 20 of all U.S. cities for opiate-based pain pill abuse by workers who have prescriptions for such medication.
The report, which was released Wednesday by San Francisco-based Castlight Health, also suggests that almost 1 out of 3 such opioid prescriptions are being abused nationwide, though only a small number of people are responsible for a majority of those prescriptions.
Almost 8 percent of all Evansville residents who got an opioid prescription through work insurance plans have gone on to become abusers, according to the report. That rate - 7.8 percent - is high enough to earn the Evansville-Henderson metropolitan area the No. 19 ranking. Though many of the cities in front of the Evansville are in the South, Terre Haute, at just more than 8 percent, ranks No. 14.
Wilmington, North Carolina, with a rate of 11.6 percent, occupies the top spot. The nationwide rate checks in at 4.5 percent, according to the report.
One of the researches on the project, Christopher Whaley, lauded the study as a new way to show that painkiller addiction remains a major issue for many people, even those who continue to hold down good employment while feeding their habit.
"The opioid epidemic is still very much prevalent in what we would otherwise think of as a fairly able-bodied working population," said Whaley, a healthcare economist at University of California at Berkeley.
Indiana is one of the states in the country that has more opioid prescriptions written by providers per year than residents. When spotlighting the issues, state health officials cite Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics that show there are 109 pain killer prescriptions written for every 100 people within Indiana, according to the state Department of Health.
Last year, the Vanderburgh County Coroner's Office responded to 47 total overdose deaths - 31 of those at least partly attributed to prescription opiates.
Castlight researchers analyzed data from about 1 million people who had opioid prescriptions across the nation through employers. Researchers only ranked the Top 25 cities nationwide and patients. The report casts prescription pill abuse as an issue that directly affects the workplace. It only used data compiled through employer-supplied health insurance and one of its conclusions is that opioid abusers cost employers almost twice as much in healthcare expenses than workers who do not abuse the drugs.
Researchers encouragedcompanies toengage in conversations about the risks of prescription pain pill relief as well as the alternate treatment measures that their workers can use instead.
“Simply put, the prescription opioid crisis is getting worse, not better. Thepersonal toll that opioid abuse takes on individuals, their friends, and their families is alarming,” theywrote in the report. “On top of that, the financial cost of opioid use impacts not just these individuals, but also their communities and their employers.”
Less than 5 percent of people prescribed an opiate drug will become an abuser, but such abusers receive a third of all opioid prescriptions, Castlight’s data concluded. Thosewho go on to abuse the drugs also make up 40 percent of all opioid spending.
The study also concluded that baby boomers are at the highest risk. Of those included in the study, employees older than 50 had a more than 7 percent abuse rate, while workers younger than 35 only had abuse rates of about 2 percent.