Gender differences in the prevalence of stimulant misuse in the United States: 2015-2019

The gender gap in prevalence of substance-use disorders has narrowed. However, gender differences in stimulant misuse have not been well-characterized in recent years. The aim of this study was to quantify gender differences in past-year stimulant misuse and stimulant-use disorder, separated by stimulant type (cocaine/crack, prescription stimulants, and methamphetamine). In an exploratory aim, we investigated whether gender differences were moderated by age or sexual orientation.

We combined data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health from 2015 to 2019 (unweighted N = 282,768) to test gender differences in the prevalence of past-year stimulant misuse.

Results indicated that stimulant misuse was significantly more prevalent in men than women for all stimulant types for both past-year use and past-year use disorder. The magnitude of this sex difference was smallest for prescription stimulants, where men had 1.37 times higher odds of past-year misuse and no gender difference was observed in the prevalence of prescription stimulant-use disorder. The magnitude of gender differences also varied based on both age and sexual orientation.

Illicit stimulant misuse continues to be more common in men than in women; however, gender differences are more modest for prescription stimulant misuse, suggesting a narrowing of this historical gender difference.