Estimating the incidence of cocaine use and mortality with music lyrics about cocaine
Open Access
- 30 June 2021
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in npj Digital Medicine
- Vol. 4 (1), 1-6
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-021-00448-x
Abstract
In the United States, cocaine use and mortality have surged in the past 5 years. Considering cocaine’s reputation as a fashionable social drug, the rise of cocaine mentions in popular music may provide a signal of epidemiological trends of cocaine use. We characterized the relationship between mentions of cocaine in song lyrics and incidence of cocaine use and mortality in the US. Incidence of cocaine use from 2002 to 2017 was obtained from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health and cocaine overdose mortality rate from 2000 to 2017 was obtained from the Centers for Disease Control. Distributed lag models were fit using ordinary least squares on the first difference to identify associations between changes in cocaine lyric mentions and changes in incidence of cocaine use and mortality. A total of 5955 song lyrics with cocaine mentions were obtained from Lyrics.com. Cocaine mentions in song lyrics were stable from 2000 to 2010 then increased by 190% from 2010 to 2017. The first-order distributed lag model estimated that a 0.01 increase in mentions of cocaine in song lyrics is associated with an 11% increase in incidence of cocaine use within the same year and a 14% increase in cocaine mortality with a 2-year lag. Lag-times were confirmed with cross-correlation analyses and the association remained after accounting for street pricing of cocaine. Mentions of cocaine in song lyrics are associated with the rise of incidence of cocaine use and cocaine overdose mortality. Popular music trends are a potentially valuable tool for understanding cocaine epidemiology trends.Keywords
Funding Information
- U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | U.S. National Library of Medicine (3R01LM011965-03S1, 3R01LM011965-03S1, 3R01LM011965-03S1)
- Harvard University
- U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | U.S. National Library of Medicine
- U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | U.S. National Library of Medicine
This publication has 33 references indexed in Scilit:
- Modeling exposure–lag–response associations with distributed lag non‐linear modelsStatistics in Medicine, 2013
- Exposure to cannabis in popular music and cannabis use among adolescentsAddiction, 2010
- Contrasting Trajectories of Heroin, Cocaine, and Methamphetamine UseJournal of Addictive Diseases, 2008
- Content Analysis of Tobacco, Alcohol, and Other Drugs in Popular MusicArchives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 2008
- Changes in drug use prevalence in rap music songs, 1979–1997Addiction Research & Theory, 2008
- On Time Series Analysis of Public Health and Biomedical DataAnnual Review of Public Health, 2006
- Alcohol, tobacco and illicit substances in music videos: A content analysis of prevalence and genreJournal of Adolescent Health, 2005
- A different kind of contextual effect: geographical clustering of cocaine incidence in the USAJournal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 2003
- Criminal Activity and Crack AddictionInternational Journal of the Addictions, 1994
- Who uses Cocaine? Social Profiles of Cocaine UsersAddiction Research, 1994