With 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. (over 59 million people) living with a mental illness, about 46% of the population meeting the “criteria for a diagnosable mental health condition sometime in their life”, and over 18% of U.S. adults and 99% of youth having a substance use disorder, substance use and mental health issues are relatively common. This affects children, adults, and communities of all backgrounds across the country.
SHADAC works to understand the impact of substance use and mental health on overall health and well-being, public health, health care access, and health care costs through measurement and analysis of relevant surveys and data from sources such as the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), the National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH), data from the National Center for Health Statistics, the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), the Minnesota Student Survey (MSS), and more.
Topics of research include opioid and other drug related deaths, alcohol consumption and alcohol-involved deaths, self-reported mental health burden, and more. Our researchers also explore various risk factors for substance use and mental health issues, such as housing or food insecurity, and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).
Below are selected examples of SHADAC projects and work on substance use and mental health topics, risk factors, and more.
Related SHADAC Projects
The Opioid Epidemic in the United States
SHADAC researchers have long been tracking trends in the ongoing U.S. opioid crisis. Over the past two decades, the United States has experienced a growing crisis of substance abuse and addiction, which can be seen in the rise in deaths from drug overdoses, particularly in those that are opioid-related.
Our researchers have developed a number of resources in a variety of formats, including blogs, briefs, infographics, webinars, interactive maps, and even state-level data sets, for researchers interested in exploring the data or conducting further analysis. Our latest brief on this topic, titled, “Changing Dynamics in the Opioid Crisis Since the COVID-19 Pandemic” found that during the pandemic period (2019-2022), fatal overdoses from fentanyl increased 99%, from methamphetamine increased 108%, and from cocaine increased 69%, indicating a still-evolving and widespread issue.
Find an archive of these resources and publications on the Opioid Epidemic resource page.
We also make related data available on our data tool, State Health Compare. With measures such as Opioid-Related and Other Drug Poisoning Deaths, users can compare data by state and nationally, view trends over time, disaggregate by drug type, and download customized datasets and visualizations for their own analysis.
Our goal is to make opioid data available to the public and to state policymakers so that they can be better informed about the unique impacts of the opioid epidemic on individual states, populations, and communities in order to develop and implement tailored and effective solutions to address substance use.
Partnership with Cannabis Research Center (CRC)
Cannabis policy in the United States has evolved rapidly during the past decade. In 2023, Minnesota became the 23rd state to legalize adult use of non-medical cannabis and by the end of that year, more than half of the U.S. population lived in states that had legalized non-medical use of cannabis for those 21 and older.
As part of Minnesota’s cannabis legislation, lawmakers allocated funding to form a Cannabis Research Center with the aim to better understand how cannabis could affect varied communities in Minnesota. The Cannabis Research Center (CRC) was established at the University of Minnesota in the School of Public Health in 2023.
SHADAC partners with the CRC on numerous research projects and publications, using and analyzing data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), the Minnesota Student Survey (MSS), and more to understand:
- Public health implications of cannabis policy and use;
- Cannabis use and perceptions among youth;
- The landscape of use and access to cannabis in Minnesota pre-legalization;
- How that landscape has evolved (and continues to evolve) post-legalization;
- And more.
Click on any of the above bullet points to access the publications in full.
Along with published findings in full issue briefs and blogs, SHADAC also helped to create an interactive mapping tool that allows users to explore reported cannabis use amongst youth in Minnesota. Explore the tool on the CRC website.
Alcohol-Involved Deaths, Issue Brief
Alcohol is one of the few legal substances that can be consumed in the United States, and it is also one of the most used. Over 85% of adults age 18 and older in the U.S. drank alcohol at some point in their lifetime, and nearly 21% of that age group reported binge drinking in the last month.
Despite alcohol use being relatively normalized in U.S. culture, even small amounts of alcohol use have been linked to increased risk for a variety of chronic diseases and several types of cancer, directly impacting individual and public health. Certain types of alcohol use behaviors such as binge drinking and heavy drinking—collectively referred to as “excessive drinking”—can also lead to increased risk for disease, cancer, and even alcohol-related deaths from long-term use causes (such as disease) or acute causes (such as accidents or alcohol poisoning).
SHADAC researchers have studied alcohol-attributable deaths for many years, tracking trends and overall impacts. Our most recent brief on this topic analyzed vital statistics data from the National Center for Health Statistics, revealing a rise in alcohol-attributable deaths among women, along with overall growth in alcohol-attributable deaths throughout the U.S. “While men have traditionally seen high rates of alcohol-attributable deaths, women saw a 33% increase in alcohol-attributable deaths from 2019 to 2022—an acceleration over the 28% growth in the rates of their male counterparts,” reports brief author Andrea Stewart.
Read our most recent brief in full here: Sobering Statistics: Acceleration of Alcohol-Attributable Deaths Across the United States During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Work on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are intensely stressful or traumatic experiences in childhood linked to both short- and long-term impacts to health. SHADAC’s research has found that nearly half (46.3%) of U.S. children have experienced at least one adverse childhood experience, and the CDC reports that 1 in 6 adults have experienced four or more ACEs in their childhood. Numerous studies have linked ACEs to increased risk of substance use and issues with mental health (i.e., anxiety, depression, etc.).
With ACEs’ widespread impact on children and adults of all backgrounds, they are a key risk factor that can help us better understand the impact of childhood experiences on individual and public health, including substance use and mental health issues.
SHADAC researchers work to understand ACEs and their effects on children and adults using survey and other data to explore their impact. In our full issue brief on the topic, “The Kids Aren't Alright: Adverse Childhood Experiences and Implications for Health Equity”, SHADAC analyzes data from the National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) to understand the prevalence ACEs and potential disparities in ACEs exposure by race, income, insurance coverage, and more. We have also presented this information in a webinar, in blogs, and have made ACEs data available for users to download and explore on State Health Compare with our ‘Adverse Childhood Experiences’ measure (available breakdowns by coverage type, poverty level, age, race / ethnicity, etc.).