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Data indicates more grandparents caring for grandchildren in higher opioid rate counties

Many North Carolina counties with higher-than-average opioid prescription rates also have higher-than-average rates of grandparents raising grandchildren. Carolina Demography looked at 2017 data for their study. Statewide, 1.6% of grandparents care for their grandchildren, above the national average of 1.3%. The two counties with the highest rate of opioid prescriptions per resident… Scotland and Columbus counties… also had the 4th and 6th highest rates of grandparents as primary caregivers. Of the top ten counties for high opioid prescription rates, seven had above-average rates of grandparents as primary caregivers.  Carolina Demography noted that of the ten counties with the lowest prescription opioid rates, five had above-state-average rates of grandparents as caregivers. It also said there can be a variety of reasons why grandparents care for their grandchildren.

George Olsen is a 1977 Havelock High School graduate. He received his B.A. in Broadcast Journalism from the University of South Carolina in 1982 where he got his first taste of non-commercial radio working for their student station WUSC. After graduation he worked about five years in commercial radio before coming to work at Public Radio East where he has remained since outside of a nearly 3-year stint as jazz and operations coordinator at WUAL in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in the early 1990s. On his return to eastern North Carolina he hosted classical music for Public Radio East before moving into the Morning Edition host position and now can be heard on All Things Considered. He also hosts and produces The Sound, five hours of Americana, Roots Rock and Contemporary Folk weekday evenings on PRE Public Radio East News & Ideas, and is a news and feature producer for Public Radio East.