Precarious Data: Crack, Opioids, and Visualizing a Drug Abuse Epidemic

Candice Welhausen

摘要

Objective I analyze a collection of data visualizations created during the crack and opioid epidemics, respectively, published by mainstream news media using three criteria: genre, subject matter, and language used to describe the graphic. I use precarity as a theoretical framework--that is, “a politically induced condition in which certain populations suffer from failing social and economic networks of support and become differentially exposed to injury, violence, and death” (Butler, 2009, p. 35)--to argue that visualizations created during the crack epidemic positioned addicts as criminals whereas opioid addicts have been positioned as patients in need of treatment. Introduction In late 2015, two economists studying health-related data inadvertently discovered an alarming trend: death rates for middle-aged, white Americans were dramatically increasing from drug overdoses (Kolata, 2015), particularly opioids (CDC, 2015). The opioid epidemic has since been widely publicized in the media. However, as critics have argued, the government's response to the crack epidemic differs dramatically from an arguably equally devastating “drug epidemic” that hit many inner US cities thirty years ago—the influx of crack cocaine. More specifically, opioid addicts, who tend to be white, have been positioned as patients, whereas in the 1970s and 80s during the war on drugs, heroin and crack addicts, respectively, who tended to be people of color, were criminalized (Hart, 2017; Hutchinson, 2017). Methods I collected data visualzations created during the crack epidemic for 1/1/86-12/31/92 and for the opioid epidemic from 11/3/15 (the date the NYT covered Case and Deaton's study)-9/30/18 for opioids from the following mainstream news organizations : Newsweek, The Chicago Tribune , The Los Angeles (LA) Times, The New York Times ( NYT ), The Washington Post (WaPo) , Time Magazine , U.S.A Today, and U.S. News and World Report. I then organized each collection by genre (bar or pie chart, line graph, map, etc), subject matter (crime-related, drug use and abuse related, effects on children, effects on health including deaths and treatment, STDs, and trafficking), and also assessed whether the text in the article directly referred to the graphic and discussed the data shown. Results Seventy three images were included of the crack epidemic and 100 were included for the opioid epidemic. The majority of graphics created during the crack epidemic were bar and line graphs whereas there was far more variation in the genre of graphics created during the opioid epidemic. The majority of graphics created during the crack epidemic also showed crime-related information (defined as crime rates, location of crimes, number of crimes committed, specific types of crimes such as homicides as well as information about arrests and sentencing) whereas very few data visualizations created during the opioid epidemic were related to crime. Indeed, the majority of these visuals showed effects on health (more specifically mortality). Finally, data visualizations create during the crack epidemic were rarely directed referred in the text of the article, but were usually discussed albeit, along with other visual information. In contrast, data visualizations created during the opioid epidemic were usually directly referenced and overtly discussed. Conclusions I suggest that these results illustrates precarity (Bulter, 2009) by revealing systemic inequalities that protect some people, but leave others vulnerable through two counter narratives: opioid addiction is a public health issue, but crack addiction is a crime.

机译：目的我分析了由主流新闻媒体分别使用三种标准（类型，主题和用于描述图形的语言）在裂纹和阿片类药物流行期间创建的数据可视化集合。我将pre折作为理论框架，也就是“在政治上诱发的状况，其中某些人口遭受社会和经济支持网络的失败，并有不同程度地遭受伤害，暴力和死亡”（巴特勒，2009年，第35页））-认为在裂纹流行期间创建的可视化将成瘾者定位为罪犯，而阿片类药物成瘾者被定位为需要治疗的患者。引言2015年底，两位研究健康相关数据的经济学家无意间发现了一个令人震惊的趋势：中年白人的死亡率因药物过量而急剧增加（Kolata，2015），尤其是阿片类药物（CDC，2015）。此后，阿片类药物流行病已在媒体上广泛宣传。但是，正如批评家所言，政府对这种可卡因的应对与可以说是同样具有破坏性的“毒品流行”截然不同，后者在三十多年前袭击了美国许多内陆城市。更具体地说，将阿片类药物成瘾者（通常是白人）定位为患者，而在1970年代和80年代的毒品战争期间，分别是有色人种的海洛因和速溶成瘾者被定为犯罪（哈特， 2017;哈钦森，2017）。方法我收集了在1/1 / 86-12 / 31/92的裂纹流行期间以及从11/3/15的阿片类药物流行期间创建的数据可视化结果（NYT涵盖Case和Deaton研究的日期）-9/30/18适用于以下主流新闻机构的阿片类药物：《新闻周刊》，《芝加哥论坛报》，《洛杉矶时报》，《纽约时报》，《华盛顿邮报》，《华盛顿邮报》，《时代》杂志，《今日美国》和《美国新闻与世界报道》。然后，我按类型（条形或饼形图，折线图，地图等），主题（与犯罪有关，与毒品使用和滥用有关，对儿童的影响，对健康的影响（包括死亡和治疗，性病和贩运））组织每个集合），还评估了文章中的文字是否直接引用了图形并讨论了所显示的数据。结果包括裂纹流行病的73张图像和阿片类药物流行病的100张图像。在裂纹流行期间创建的大多数图形为条形图和折线图，而在阿片类药物流行期间创建的图形类型却存在更多差异。裂纹流行期间创建的大多数图形还显示了与犯罪有关的信息（定义为犯罪率，犯罪地点，犯罪数量，凶杀等特定类型的犯罪以及有关逮捕和判刑的信息），而数据很少阿片类药物流行期间创建的可视化与犯罪有关。实际上，大多数这些视觉效果都显示出对健康的影响（更具体地讲是死亡率）。最后，在本文中很少提及在裂纹流行期间创建的数据可视化，但通常会与其他可视信息一起进行讨论。相反，在阿片类药物流行期间创建的数据可视化通常被直接引用和公开讨论。结论我建议这些结果通过揭示保护某些人的系统性不平等现象（Bulter，2009年）来说明pre可危，但通过两个相反的叙述使阿片类药物成瘾是公共卫生问题，而速成瘾则是犯罪。

Precarious Data: Crack, Opioids, and Visualizing a Drug Abuse Epidemic

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