Cassidy Jordan Tomlinson

The current wave of the ongoing substance use crisis in the United States has been characterized by the increasing co-occurrence of mental health challenges with substance use disorder. While rural populations face numerous risk factors for both conditions, they remain an understudied population. Vulnerability for experiencing mental health challenges and/or a substance use disorder is dependent on a combination of environmental, social, and biological factors. These conditions likely operate as a biosocial feedback loop, where they are both the cause and consequence of stressful life within a social context that perpetuates vulnerability. Additionally, long-term drug use is associated with a suite of adverse health outcomes. Epigenetic mechanisms, which are chemical modifications to the genome that influence gene expression, may be a pathway between substance use and adverse health outcomes. This project seeks to elucidate how the network of influence between poverty, stigma, rurality, mental health, and substance use contributes to adverse health outcomes and biological embodiment via an epigenetic mechanism among rural and urban Nebraskans.