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Health Policy Considerations for Spiritual Care in the United States
Published in Kathleen Benton, Renzo Pegoraro, Finding Dignity at the End of Life, 2020
Another potential venue involves the White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative, formerly the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships established by the Bush administration in 2001 and extended through the Obama administration up to the present day (White House, 2018). Previously, this office had encouraged federal agencies to collaborate with faith-based organizations, provided that inherently religious activities (e.g., prayer, worship) are not funded by the government and that other conditions outlined in the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause are not violated. This bipartisan effort has led to partnerships for a wide range of health promotion and social service activities (Koh & Coles, 2019). In a time where communities are wrestling with the opioid crisis, substance use disorders, cirrhosis, self-harm, and other so-called “diseases of despair,” addressing the spiritual underpinnings of such conditions could represent a potential avenue of work (Moreau, 2018).
Challenges Facing the American Healthcare System
Published in Kant Patel, Mark Rushefsky, Healthcare Politics and Policy in America, 2019
The death rate has risen sharply among white women, spreading an epidemic of self-destruction in small-town and rural America. This is especially the case among those with a high school education or less. They are dying from a rash of pathologies, sicknesses, and addictions that experts have come to call “diseases of despair.” Consequently, the suicide rate among middle-aged white women has also risen in parallel with prescriptions for psychiatric drugs for anxiety in combination with painkillers. Nearly one in four white women aged 50 to 64 are being treated with anti-depressants. Binge drinking is also on the rise in this group. Chillicothe, a historic town in Ohio, provides an example. Once it was the first capital of Ohio and a destination on the underground railroad. Today, it has changed dramatically. The theft and violent crime rate has gone up because of the drug problem. The residents of the town blame the drug problem on “the 23 pipeline,” a reference to Route 23, the highway that brings drug dealers from Columbus and Detroit to the north. In fact, to the south of Chillicothe, the town of Portsmouth on the Ohio River, once famous for shoe factories, today is better known as the setting of the acclaimed book Dreamland, which describes the proliferation of pain clinics also known as pill mills (Achenbach 2016).
Personal Accounts of Psychosis
Published in Michael Farrell, Psychosis Under Discussion, 2017
Lewis (1967) quotes an account written by a young man, aged 18 years, who had had a condition (apparently schizophrenia) for a year or more: I am more and more losing contact with my environment and with myself. Instead of taking an interest in what goes on and caring about what happens with my illness, I am all the time losing my emotional contact with everything including myself … Even this illness which pierces to the centre of my whole life, I can regard only objectively. But, on rare occasions, I am overwhelmed by the sudden realisation of the ghastly destruction that is caused by this creeping uncanny disease … My despair sometimes floods over me. But after each such outburst I become more indifferent. I lose myself more in the disease. I sink into an almost oblivious existence.
The role of mountaintop removal mining in the opioid crisis
Published in Journal of Social Work Practice in the Addictions, 2022
M. Katie Marberry, Danilea Werner
As MTR continues in Central Appalachia, opportunities are restricted, which fosters conditions for higher rates of diseases of despair. Alcohol and drug overdose, of both prescription and illegal varieties, joins suicide and alcoholic liver disease/cirrhosis of the liver in a category of problems known as ‘diseases of despair.’ Diseases of despair are rooted in a person’s long-term experience of lack of opportunity, primarily in the labor market but ultimately including all realms of life (Case & Deaton, 2017). Appalachia has a 37% higher mortality rate from diseases of despair when compared with non-Appalachian America (Meit et al., 2017). These diseases of despair may be connected to ‘solastalgia’ (Albrecht et al., 2007) – a new concept referring to an environmentally induced distress. Solastalgia is considered a psychoterratic illness, which is “defined as earth-related mental illness where people’s mental wellbeing … is threatened by the severing of ‘healthy’ links between themselves and their home/territory” (Albrecht et al., 2007, p. S95).
The role of mountaintop removal mining in the opioid crisis
Published in Journal of Social Work Practice in the Addictions, 2020
M. Katie Marberry, Danilea Werner
As MTR continues in Central Appalachia, opportunities are restricted, which fosters conditions for higher rates of diseases of despair. Alcohol and drug overdose, of both prescription and illegal varieties, joins suicide and alcoholic liver disease/cirrhosis of the liver in a category of problems known as ‘diseases of despair.’ Diseases of despair are rooted in a person’s long-term experience of lack of opportunity, primarily in the labor market but ultimately including all realms of life (Case & Deaton, 2017). Appalachia has a 37% higher mortality rate from diseases of despair when compared with non-Appalachian America (Meit et al., 2017). These diseases of despair may be connected to ‘solastalgia’ (Albrecht et al., 2007) – a new concept referring to an environmentally induced distress. Solastalgia is considered a psychoterratic illness, which is “defined as earth-related mental illness where people’s mental wellbeing … is threatened by the severing of ‘healthy’ links between themselves and their home/territory (Albrecht et al., 2007, p. S95).
Social determinants of opioid use behaviors among adults in the United States
Published in Journal of Substance Use, 2023
While more downstream factors (e.g., other forms of substance use, mental and physical health status) have routinely been tied to substance use, including opioid use behaviors (Becker et al., 2008; Fink et al., 2015; Ford et al., 2018; B. H. Han et al., 2019; Han et al., 2017; Mojtabai et al., 2019; Schepis & McCabe, 2019), scholars have recently called for a need to shift our attention to the social determinants of the opioid crisis (Cantu et al., 2020). For example, Dasgupta et al. (2018) argued that despite the large role of the overprescribing of prescription opioids coupled with the rising prevalence of Americans suffering from chronic pain since the mid-1990s, the opioid crisis we are witnessing is primarily driven by social factors such as poverty, hopelessness, isolation, lack of access to substance use treatment, neighborhood disadvantage, low rates of educational attainment, and rising income and wealth inequality. Statistical relationships exist between social variables and opioid misuse as evident among national samples of the general U.S. population (Chang, 2018). For instance, lower educational attainment levels, lower incomes, and government program participation are associated with opioid use behaviors (Han et al., 2018; Mowbray & Quinn, 2015; Nicholson, 2020). In addition, health insurance status, religious attendance, urban residency, marital status, employment status, and drug availability are linked with opioid use behaviors (Arkes & Iguchi, 2008; Esser et al., 2019; Han et al., 2018; Ihongbe & Masho, 2016; Nicholson & Vincent, 2019; Rigg & Monnat, 2015). These findings suggest that social determinants may be significant factors associated with opioid behaviors among U.S. adults. “Diseases of despair,” largely due to social determinants, may trigger individuals to engage in such actions as a coping strategy as a result of poverty, lack of educational attainment opportunities, limited access to health care, poor neighborhood conditions, and minimial social support and community engagement. These realities demonstrate the need for an increased focus on identifying specific social determinants linked to opioid misuse among Americans.