The impact of health insurance on problematic substance use among justice-involved individuals

One of the key issues justice-involved individuals face is problematic substance use. In this paper, we explore whether health insurance coverage is associated with reductions in substance use issues among the justice-involved population. Using nationally representative data from the National Survey of Drug Use and Health and multivariate logistic regression models, our results suggest that health insurance is associated with reductions in heavy drinking and daily cigarette smoking among justice-involved individuals. These findings bolster support for the view that that policymakers should strive to increase access to health insurance coverage for justice-involved individuals.