SUBSTANCE ABUSE AMONG THAI’S AGRICULTURE-RELATED WORKERS
Keywords:
Agriculture workers, Substance, ThailandAbstract
The study objectives were to examine drug use prevalence and to explore the associations of cluster environment characteristics with drug use among agriculture-related workers in Thailand. This was a cross-sectional study involving 2936 agriculture-related workers throughout Thailand. Trained interviewers conducted semi-structured interviews. The drug-use patterns and behaviors of 124 current users were also structurally observed. A multilevel binary logistic regression model was used to estimate the effects of the cluster environment on drug use.
The annual prevalence was 58.73%. Illicit drugs and non-prescription drugs were widely used. Age, sex, and non-prescription behavior were associated with statistically significant substance use. Contextual clustering was found to affect drug use among agriculture-related workers significantly. A 1-unit increase in treatment rate predicted 12.7-times higher illicit drug use and 15.3-times higher methamphetamine use.
Conclusions: Agricultural work facilitated the spread of drug use. The design of the surveillance system should be considered.
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