{"doi":"10.1111/jgs.18800","title":"Sociodemographic and health correlates of cannabis use among <scp>middle‐aged</scp> and older adults: Findings from <scp>NESARC‐III</scp>","abstract":"Cannabis is increasingly being used to alleviate a variety of health conditions, particularly among middle aged and older adults,1, 2 yet the relationship between cannabis and health conditions is complex as cannabis use is also associated with health problems.3 Furthermore, middle-aged and older cannabis users differ with regard to their prevalence of health comorbidities as well as their use of and stigma surrounding substance use due to generational differences.4, 5 Few studies have compared differences in correlates of cannabis use between these age groups.6, 7 We thus sought to use the 2012–2013 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions-III (NESARC-III) to examine and compare sociodemographic, physical, and mental health characteristics associated with cannabis use among middle-aged and older adults. These data can provide important information about these associations preceding the widespread legalization of recreational marijuana in the United States. We examined data from a US representative sample of middle-aged (50–64 years, N = 8932) and older (65+ years, N = 5806) adults from NESARC-III. A semi-structured clinical interview was used to assess past-year cannabis use. Past-year physical health conditions were categorized into groups based on prior studies: metabolic disease (e.g., diabetes),8 cardiovascular disease (e.g., hypertension),8 digestive disease (e.g., bowel disease),8 musculoskeletal disease (e.g., arthritis),9 and nerve pain (e.g., complex regional pain syndrome).9 Past-year mental health conditions were diagnosed using criteria from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition. Conditions include alcohol use disorder, tobacco use disorder, any mood disorder (e.g., major depressive episode), any anxiety disorder (e.g., generalized anxiety disorder), and any personality disorder (e.g., borderline personality disorder). Sample characteristics of the NESARC-III participants (N = 14,738) were tabulated, stratified by age, and chi-square tests were used to compare the two age groups. Multivariable logistic regression analyses were then conducted to test associations of each sociodemographic, physical, and mental health correlate with cannabis use. Analyses were adjusted for age, age group, sex, race/ethnicity, education, marital status, retirement status, family income, urbanicity, region, and self-reported general health. We also tested interaction terms between age group × characteristics to assess differences by age group. Analyses were conducted using SAS 9.4 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC). This secondary data analysis was not deemed a human subject research by the University of California San Diego Institutional Review Board. Table 1 presents sociodemographic, physical, and mental health characteristics by age group among the NESARC-III sample. Significant differences (ps <0.01) were observed between the two age groups for all characteristics examined except for region of residence and presence of digestive disease. An estimated 5.6% of middle-aged adults and 1.3% of older adults used cannabis in the past year. Table 2 presents the adjusted odds ratios indicating associations between each characteristic and cannabis use. In both age groups, males and individuals residing on the West Coast exhibited higher odds of cannabis use, whereas married individuals demonstrated lower odds. Among middle-aged adults, White individuals had higher odds of use, whereas those with income ≥$70,000 had lower odds. Among older adults, residing in an urban area was associated with lower odds of use. Middle-aged adults with digestive disease, musculoskeletal disease, and nerve pain showed higher odds of use, whereas only digestive disease was associated with higher odds of use among older adults. Alcohol use disorder, tobacco use disorder, any mood disorder, and any personality disorder were associated with higher odds of use among both age groups, whereas any anxiety disorder was a","journal":"Journal of the American Geriatrics Society","year":2024,"id":476348,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":2,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9615,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1087940,"name":"Nora Satybaldiyeva","orcid":"0000-0003-3774-791X","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":785743,"name":"Jaclyn Bergstrom","orcid":"0000-0002-0212-0802","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":878913,"name":"Nhi Nguyen","orcid":"0000-0001-8689-8525","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1313893,"name":"Paola N. Cruz Rivera","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":643139,"name":"Namkee G. Choi","orcid":"0000-0002-8382-1191","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":338720,"name":"Alison Moore","orcid":"0000-0003-2989-4346","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":878577,"name":"Kevin H. Yang","orcid":"0000-0002-1451-258X","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":10,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:06:25.428435Z","pmid":"38362926","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}