From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: Opioid Misuse Impacts on Older Workers Description: Opioid misuse has resulted in the deaths of over 840,000 Americans since 1999, and the pandemic has exasperated this crisis. The pandemic has exacerbated this problem. In fact, more than 75,000 deaths were attributed to overdoses between April 2020 and April 2021. We'll talk to GAO's Tom Costa to take a closer look at one population particularly affected by the opioid crisis, older adults. Related GAO Work: GAO-22-104491, Older Workers: Opioid Misuse and Employment Outcomes Released: March 2022 [Tom Costa:] Older adults who have reported misusing opioids were more likely to lack stable employment or be unemployed. [Music] [Holly Hobbs:] Hi and welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report--your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. I'm your host, Holly Hobbs. Opioid misuse has resulted in the deaths of over 840,000 Americans since 1999, and the pandemic has exasperated this crisis. In fact, more than 75,000 deaths were attributed to overdoses between April 2020 and April 2021. On today's podcast, we'll take a closer look at one population particularly affected by the opioid crisis--older adults. Joining us in this discussion is GAO Director Tom Costa, an expert on worker safety and health issues, who has a new report out on this topic. Thanks for joining us. [Tom Costa:] Thanks for having me, Holly. [Holly Hobbs:] So, Tom, let's start with--how big of a problem is opioid misuse among older adults? [Tom Costa:] Well, we found that about 2.7 million people age 50 and older reported misusing opioids between 2015 and 2019. That's about 2% of older adults. [Holly Hobbs:] And do we know if these folks have anything in common? [Tom Costa:] Yeah, they do. Compared with older adults who did not misuse opioids, we found that higher percentages of those who did were male, unmarried, did not have college degrees, or were living at or below the federal poverty line. [Holly Hobbs:] Tom, why did we look at older adults specifically? [Tom Costa:] Yeah. So the request came from the Senate Select Committee on Aging. And there was a particular interest in how the opioid pandemic had affected older workers. They did have some unique characteristics, right? So because of their age or the other characteristics that that make them, you know, somewhat unique, they might have had difficulty, for example, accessing technology and using it than maybe other people did. They faced age discrimination and things like that, that perhaps potentially younger employees might not have faced. [Holly Hobbs:] So did opioid misuse affect older adults' ability to work or keep a job? [Tom Costa:] Yes, it did. For a bit of context, we estimated that about half of all adults age 50 and older were either looking for work or actually working. And then we found that opioid misuse was associated with a lower likelihood of those folks being in the labor force at all. But it's tricky to determine the causality. So older adults in the labor force that misused opioids were about 40% less likely to be employed-- as compared to those who did not misuse opioids. For those who were actively employed, we found that those who misused opioids were twice as likely to have experienced periods of unemployment in the prior year. These periods of unemployment, they can have a significant impact on a worker's ability to achieve financial stability. We also found that older workers who misused opioids were more likely to have missed work due to injury or illness, or skipped work. For example, they were three times as likely to report skipping days as compared to those who didn't. [Holly Hobbs:] And what kind of training and other help were these folks given? [Tom Costa:] So training covered a wide variety of things like career counseling, workforce preparation, prep classes to get a high school diploma, English as a Second Language and other job placement things. And common industries that the local workforce agencies targeted included things like manufacturing, driving, retail, health care, agriculture, IT, construction and hospitality. [Holly Hobbs:] And, for our report, we talked to some folks who run workforce agencies. What did they tell us about the challenges they face when helping this population? [Tom Costa:] Well, in general, older workers have historically faced age discrimination when looking for work. In addition, people who misused opioids have historically faced barriers gaining employment with things like having to explain possible criminal records or employment gaps to potential employers. And taken together, those things just make it harder for them to find a job. [Music] [Holly Hobbs:] So, Tom just told us that older adults with histories of opioid misuse are more likely to experience unemployment or miss work due to injury and illness. And that these obstacles can add to existing challenges they face in gaining employment because of their age. So Tom, the pandemic was disruptive to many businesses and workers. What was the impact on this particular population and the efforts to help them? [Tom Costa:] Yeah, we have a pretty good idea. As we saw during the pandemic, older folks were more likely to get very sick, hospitalized or die from COVID. This likely created some hesitancy among them to either work in person or actively seek work. Moreover, COVID was disruptive to all the state recovery programs, including employment and training programs. So according to officials, this made these workers more prone to relapses during the pandemic. And COVID created challenges to enrolling people and training programs as well because enrollment had to move online for most of the programs. So, for example, one state halted its workforce reentry programs that went through the local jails because the jails stopped allowing visitors or nonessential staff during the pandemic. In addition, the population we focused on was generally older, less affluent and less educated, and they may have lacked reliable access to computers or internet, and may have been less comfortable with using that technology altogether. So this also made it more difficult for them to participate remotely in both their recovery programs and their training programs. And it also made it more difficult for the program providers to reach out to that population and deliver the services. That said, even while COVID created all these challenges, some state officials noted that going virtual did allow them to reach some people they hadn't reached before, such as people who lacked reliable transportation. [Holly Hobbs:] And last question, what's the bottom line of this report? [Tom Costa:] I think the bottom line is that, you know, older adults who have reported misusing opioids were more likely to lack stable employment or be unemployed. And compounding the difficulties they already faced from their drug misuse issues, COVID generally made it harder for them to access critical recovery and job training services, making it even more difficult for them to remain in the labor force. [Holly Hobbs:] That was GAO's Tom Costa, talking about a new report that looked at opioid misuse among older workers. Thanks for your time, Tom. [Tom Costa:] Thanks for having me, Holly. [Holly Hobbs:] And thank you for listening to the Watchdog Report. 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