Release Date
Geography
Language of Resource
Full Text Available
Open Access / OK to Reproduce
Peer Reviewed
Objective
This article reviews research investigating the synergistic interaction of opioid-related morbidity and mortality with other social, psychiatric, and biological conditions, to describe how and why it is syndemic.
Findings/Key points
Unlike scholarship from other disciplines, specifically the controversial “Deaths of Despair” (DoD) framework, most research on opioid-related overdose syndemics fails to fully articulate the macro-structural drivers of localized disease clustering. Instead, the syndemics scholarship emphasizes the clinical manifestations of opioid and substance use, illustrating a problem in translation at the heart of syndemic theory. Moreover, syndemics scholarship on opioid impacts remains largely disconnected from the wider DoD discourse, which represents a missed opportunity for equity-oriented research. Re-directing attention to the sociopolitical forces that shape opioid-related overdose syndemics is necessary to prevent future commercially-driven health crises and repair lives harmed by these deadly syndemics.
Design/methods
Scoping review
