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The Role of Third Places on County-level Drug Overdose Deaths before and during COVID-19
Curry, Kayla Onge, Jarron Saint
Curry, Kayla
Onge, Jarron Saint
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Abstract
Third places—informal community spaces outside of home and work—were largely inaccessible during the COVID-19 pandemic due to public health restrictions. This study investigates whether third place availability at the county level served as a factor in drug overdose deaths before and during the pandemic. Using data from the National Neighborhood Data Archive (2015–2021), publicly available CDC overdose death reports (2016–2021), and the American Community Survey (2015–2022), we applied linear regression to assess the relationship between third place availability and drug overdose death rates. Results show that greater third place availability was significantly associated with lower overdose death rates during the pandemic (2019–2021) net of other area-level factors, but had moderating effects in rural counties and those with higher rates of unemployment and uninsurance. These findings suggest that third places—beyond their roles as casual gathering spots—may serve as critical components of social infrastructure, offering informal support and resources that helped buffer the effects of social isolation and economic hardship during the pandemic especially for rural counties.
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These are the slides from a presentation given at the Southern Demographic Association held in Lexington, KY on 10/17/2025.
Date
2025-10-17
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University of Kansas
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CurryK_2025.pdf
Adobe PDF, 2.52 MB
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Keywords
Covid, Drug mortality, Overdose, Rural