Home // International Journal On Advances in Life Sciences, volume 12, numbers 1 and 2, 2020 // View article
Authors:
Amna Alalawi
Les Sztandera
Keywords: data analytics; big data; opioids; drug overdose
Abstract:
AI is a machine learning approach that is applied to evaluate data, makes assumptions, and facilitates a predication at different scales. It plays a key role in data science to evaluate a range of past data through statistical analysis. In similar way, big data analysis is termed as a combination of various structured, unstructured data collected by companies that would support companies to evaluate future predictions and machine learning. Deaths from drug overdose including opioid overdose have been increasing at an alarming rate, and authorities still find tackling this problem an acute challenge. This paper applies Artificial Intelligence and statistical techniques to big data to identify the demographic and socio-economic factors that have led to the increasing number of drug overdose deaths in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States. Using Artificial Intelligence software, we analyzed a dataset of over 3,500 patients alongside demographic and socio-economic variables to gain detailed insights into the issue, insights that we can generalize to craft solutions to this problem in both domestic and global communities. Our findings revealed patterns ranging from possible psychological and behavioral factors and drug use on weekends, a direct market supply effect on the number of deaths, age as a factor in most overdose incidences, the majority of the population are uninsured or unemployed, and live on the outskirts of Pittsburgh. These findings imply the need for authorities to offer educational workshops to individuals and their families about the dangers of the current drug epidemic and to design an effective policy for the oversight of drug market supply that includes taking firm action against violators. The research also showed that incidences of drug overdose by age is the least among Indian, but highest among White or African American people. The study further revealed that the habit and trend of drug consumption are very common among the White and African American communities. The importance different approaches of data analytics has enhanced on significant manner to evaluate the different aspects of Drug overdose and death cases.
Pages: 24 to 33
Copyright: Copyright (c) to authors, 2020. Used with permission.
Publication date: June 30, 2020
Published in: journal
ISSN: 1942-2660