[Jeff Higgins]

This looks to me like the classic "chicken or the egg" question, and this researcher had already decided which before undertaking his study. Far, far too many "objective" studies are done to simply support the researchers' assumptions, assumptions made before the study even begins. When researchers begin with the notion that "I'm going to prove 'x'...", they seldom prove themselves wrong.

So how about this - the increased opioid presence in these communities is due to the nature of the work that the people there perform. High risk, high injury, hard on the old body kind of work. Like logging, mining, oil field, natural gas field, farming, and that kind of thing. Their decreased workforce participation is due the injuries suffered at that work. In other words, their work is injuring them, rendering them unable to work, and the opioids showed up in answer to that - it's not the opioids that are keeping them from working. I think this study has some problems with causation...