Effects of chronic cocaine use on physical health: a prospective study in a general population sample

Abstract

Few studies have examined long-term effects of chronic cocaine use on physical health in the general population. The current study assesses the effects of chronic cocaine use by the late twenties on physical health by the mid thirties in a longitudinal cohort from the general population. Measures of physical health included self-reported health status, cardiovascular, neurological, and somatic symptoms, and number of hospital or sick days within the last year. The causal analyses were restricted to males because few females used cocaine heavily and the relationships between females' cocaine use and physical health were rarely significant. Among males, chronic cocaine use increased physical health problems, controlling for prior health status, current cocaine use, use of other drugs and sociodemographic characteristics. In turn, poor health contributed to continued cocaine use. Variance partitioning based on cocaine use patterns (frequency and chronicity) indicated that chronic users experienced the most adverse consequences on subsequent physical health. Implications for understanding how chronic cocaine use affects a broad spectrum of physical functioning are discussed.