Data on Opioids Reported by a Researcher at Mathematica Policy Research Inc. (Employment Outcomes for Social Security Disability Insurance Applicants Who Use Opioids): Opioids

2025 JAN 15 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at NewsRx Drug Daily -- New research on opioids is the subject of a new report. According to news originating from Washington, District of Columbia, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “In this article, we examine the relationship between self-reported opioid use and employment outcomes among Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) applicants who applied to SSDI in 2009.”

Financial supporters for this research include U.S. Social Security Administration.

Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from Mathematica Policy Research Inc.: “We use a machine learning method to identify opioids recorded in text fields on SSDI applications. Studying outcomes for 4 years after the Social Security Administration (SSA) determined the application outcome, we find a negative and statistically significant association between self-reported opioid use at application and post-determination employment-related outcomes. Notably, opioid use at the time of application was associated with a 3% point decline in the likelihood of employment in the first 4 years after determination and represents a 7.5% decline relative to the mean employment rate for the period.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Results from a reduced-form model estimating the relationship between local opioid prescribing patterns and employment outcomes suggest that a 10% increase in the local opioid prescribing rate is associated with employment that is, at most, 0.3% points lower, which is similar to the documented association among the broader U.S. population. However, the potential implications for SSDI applicants are particularly notable because opioid use is about 50% higher among SSDI applicants.”

For more information on this research see: Employment Outcomes for Social Security Disability Insurance Applicants Who Use Opioids. Journal of Disability Policy Studies, 2024. The publisher for Journal of Disability Policy Studies is SAGE Publications.

A free version of this journal article is available at https://doi.org/10.1177/10442073241304108.

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Denise Hoffman, Mathematica Policy Research Inc., Washington, DC, United States. Additional authors for this research include April Yanyuan Wu, Paul O’Leary.

ORCID is an identifier for authors and includes bibliographic information. The following is ORCID information for the author of this research: Denise Hoffman (http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6677-1698).

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