Department of Sociology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, NE, USA; Rural Drug Addiction Research Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, NE, USA.
Rural Drug Addiction Research Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, NE, USA.
Addict Behav. 2022 Jan;124:107116. doi: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2021.107116. Epub 2021 Sep 9.
This study examines the relationship between personal networks and polysubstance use among people who use drugs (PWUD) in a medium sized city in the Midwest. A large body of work has demonstrated that personal relationships have an ambivalent association with substance use. On the one hand, a supportive network is associated with safer drug use practices and dramatically improves the outlook for recovery. However, individuals whose personal networks are composed of co-drug use partners are more likely to engage in risky practices. We argue that this notion of "supportive" social contacts and "risky" social contacts is ultimately incomplete: risky behaviors are introduced and further developed in a social context, often with the people who provide emotional support. We argue that personal networks with more multiplex relationships (where co-drug use and confiding fuse) are harmful because they combine norms of trust and reciprocity with drug use. We use data from the Rural Health Cohort (RHC) study to test this idea. The sample consists of 120 adult PWUD in a medium sized city located in southeastern Nebraska who were recruited using respondent-driven sampling. Participants listed up to nine confidants and nine co-drug use partners, indicating any overlap between the two networks. Our results demonstrate that multiplex ties are as strongly associated with polysubstance use as simple co-drug use relationships. As the drug crisis has increasingly shifted to underserved populations outside large urban centers, this paper represents an important advance in our understanding of the current drug crisis.
本研究考察了中西部一个中型城市的吸毒者（PWUD）个人网络与多药物使用之间的关系。大量研究表明，人际关系与物质使用之间存在矛盾关系。一方面，支持性的网络与更安全的药物使用实践相关联，并极大地改善了康复前景。然而，个人网络由共同药物使用者组成的人更有可能从事高风险的行为。我们认为，这种“支持性”社会联系和“风险”社会联系的概念最终是不完整的：风险行为是在社会背景下引入和进一步发展的，通常是与提供情感支持的人一起。我们认为，具有更多多重关系（共同药物使用和倾诉融合）的个人网络是有害的，因为它们将信任和互惠的规范与药物使用结合在一起。我们使用农村健康队列（RHC）研究的数据来检验这一观点。该样本包括内布拉斯加州东南部一个中型城市的 120 名成年 PWUD，他们是通过应答者驱动抽样招募的。参与者最多列出了九个知己和九个共同药物使用者，表示两个网络之间存在重叠。我们的研究结果表明，多重联系与多药物使用的关联与简单的共同药物使用关系一样强。随着毒品危机越来越多地转移到大城市中心以外的服务不足的人群中，本文代表了我们对当前毒品危机的理解的重要进展。
