Addiction, Mutual Aid Networks, and the Navigation of Care Systems

The University Of Texas Health Science Center At Houston, Houston TX

Investigators

Abstract

The opioid epidemic exposes how opioid misuse undermines family and community coherence. Family members tasked with supporting and caring for individuals affected by opioid addiction are often unable to provide the necessary support, contributing to precarity for affected individuals. How do individuals with a history of opioid addiction navigate and create webs of social support when families are unable to step in? This study focuses on the roles of different forms of social networks and formal programs in supporting people with a history of opioid addiction. Specifically, the research investigates how people affected by opioids create new ways of caring and relating to one another in opioid-affected communities that have access to mutual aid groups to provide support that is otherwise lacking. The project will reveal priorities of opioid-affected individuals in seeking care and support, thus informing attempts to aid in their recovery. Specifically, leveraging lessons learned via observing how users care for each other will provide insights into ways to model interventions for supportive care networks for recovery in the United States. The research is informed by and advances kinship theory and medical anthropology by considering two research questions: (1) How do the dynamics of shifting family support influence the decisions and behavior of individuals affected by opioid addiction? (2) What differences are seen in mutual aid associations compared with other networks in care practices, relationships, and experiences? To address these questions the study employs systematic observations and interviews with care practices in network interactions, analyzes the affective flows and discourses within and between care subnetworks, and uses personal-network questionnaires that characterize relationships among individuals affected by opioid addiction as part of their broader social networks. Results from the project will provide insights into the operation of mutual aid organizations through offering new strategies of harm reduction and their deployment that can have an influence on opioid policy and caregiving. The multi-level characterization of networks of kin and non-kin will refine anthropological understandings of the contexts that give rise to support versus divestment in kin, and how networks are broken and rebuilt as allegiances shift due to opioid addiction. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.