Exploring Living Arrangements as a Predictor of Canadians' Illicit Drug Use: Quantitative Findings From the Canadian Community Health Survey.

Objectives

About four percent of Canadians used illegal drugs in 2019, but it remains unknown whether their living arrangements are a relevant factor.

Methods

We use the public version of the 2015-2016 Canadian Community Health Survey Annual Component. The binary logit model and complementary log-log model are applied to investigate to what extent living arrangements predict Canadians' recent illicit drug use.

Results

Living alone is significantly associated with Canadians' illicit drug use. For young and older Canadians, those living with spouses/partners, children, or both are less likely to use illicit drugs than their solo-living counterparts. Middle-aged Canadians who lived with spouses/partners only or with children have significantly lower likelihoods of using illicit drugs compared to those living alone. Additionally, differences between men and women have been found. Spouses/partners and children play more positive roles for young and middle-aged women than for men.

Conclusion

Our findings suggest that living with core families is a type of collectivity that may have positive effects on Canadians' health behaviours compared to those living alone, who, therefore, need more attention from health officials.