In Trump Country, Highest Prescription Opioid Rates

Phillip Smith

June 25, 2018 4:50 am

The two fevers gripping the land—opioid addiction and support for Donald Trump—are related. A new study from University of Texas researchers finds that counties with the highest opioid prescription rates were also more likely to favor Trump in the 2016 election.

The study was published Friday in JAMA Network Open. The cross-sectional analysis examined data from the Census Bureau, Medicare Part D, and uselectionatlas.org to try to understand what has been deemed the “Oxy electorate.”

Focusing on legally available prescription pain relievers, like oxycodone and hydrocodone, codeine and morphine, but not illegal substances like heroin, the study examined Medicare Part D records for some 3.7 million people in 3,128 of the 3,142 counties in the U.S. Researchers designated people who had received at least one 90-day supply of prescription opioids as “high opioid users.”

Some 693 counties, typically with populations smaller than one million, had rates of opioid prescribing that were significantly higher than the national mean. Another 638 counties were identified as having significantly lower than average opioid use. In those high opioid use counties, Trump won 59.96% of the vote. In the low opioid use counties, he won only 38.7% of the vote. (Trump won 45.92% of the overall vote.)

Those counties with both high opioid use and high Trump support were largely in the South, Midwest, and southern Appalachia.

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