America's opioid epidemic has moved to the big city

Pills and bottles. — (Image credit: iStock)

The popular face of America's opioid epidemic is white and rural, but new research from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services indicates the crisis of opioid misuse and addiction has become just as pressing in urban areas.

As The Washington Post reports, the study found that more than one-third of Americans were prescribed opioids in big cities, small towns, and rural areas alike. Within that group, about 1 in 10 prescription recipients misused the drugs across locational categories. Misuse without a diagnosis of an opioid use disorder was actually slightly more common in urban areas, while rural regions still remain the leader in diagnosed misuse.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.