Table 4.
Behavioral Health Correlates of Marijuana Use among Late Middle-Aged and Older Adults in the United States
| Have you used marijuana or hashish in the past 12 months? | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Late Middle-Aged Adults (Ages 50 to 64) |
Older Adults (Ages 65 and older) |
|||||||||||
| No (n = 43,932) |
Yes (n = 2668) |
Odds Ratio | No (n = 29,162) |
Yes (n = 256) |
Odds Ratio | |||||||
| % | 95% CI | % | 95% CI | AOR | (95% CI) | % | 95% CI | % | 95% CI | AOR | (95% CI) | |
|
Past Year Conditions |
||||||||||||
| Anxiety | ||||||||||||
| No | 94.57 | (94.3–94.9) | 90.50 | (89.0–91.8) | 96.87 | (96.6–97.1) | 90.67 | (84.6–94.5) | ||||
| Yes | 5.43 | (5.1–5.7) | 9.50 | (8.2–10.9) | 1.38 | (1.10–1.72) | 3.13 | (2.9–3.4) | 9.33 | (5.5–15.4) | 2.87 | (1.41–5.83) |
| Depression | ||||||||||||
| No | 91.22 | (90.8–91.6) | 85.46 | (83.0–87.6) | 95.25 | (94.9–95.6) | 90.31 | (85.0–93.9) | ||||
| Yes | 8.78 | (8.4–9.2) | 14.54 | (12.4–17.0) | 1.53 | (1.22–1.92) | 4.75 | (4.4–5.1) | 9.69 | (6.1–15.0) | 1.75 | (1.41–5.83) |
| HIV/AIDS | ||||||||||||
| No | 99.87 | (99.8–99.9) | 99.16 | (98.5–99.5) | -- | -- | -- | -- | ||||
| Yes | 0.13 | (0.09–0.19) | 0.84 | (0.48–1.48) | 3.50 | (1.80–6.79) | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| Sexually-Transmitted | ||||||||||||
| Disease | ||||||||||||
| No | 99.55 | (99.4–99.6) | 98.63 | (97.7–99.2) | 2.61 | (1.44–4.73) | 99.90 | (99.8–99.9) | 98.38 | (94.4–99.5) | 8.91 | (2.00–39.7) |
| Yes | 0.45 | (0.36–0.56) | 1.37 | (0.83–2.25) | 0.10 | (0.06–0.17) | 1.62 | (0.46–5.59) | ||||
Note: All odds ratios adjusted for gender, race/ethnicity, family income, education, marital status, insurance, and survey year. Additionally, in the examination of behavioral health conditions, we controlled for comorbid health conditions (i.e., anxiety, depression, HIV, sexually transmitted disease). While self-assessment of overall health has been continuously measured sense 2002, data on health problems reported by health provider were not available prior to 2005 in the NSDUH data. As such, data on health problems reported by health provider are for 2005–2014 only. All variables examined are dichotomously coded, except for self-assessment of overall health. Self-assessment of overall health is an ordinal variable and therefore values shown under the percent columns reflect mean values rather than percentages. Odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals in bold are statistically significant.