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Abstract
In the United States, the use and misuse of substances such as tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drugs affect the lives of millions of people as substance use is often an antecedent and a consequence associated with mental and physical illness. Dealing with these challenges requires a greater understanding of substance use in society. In this paper, the authors propose using Model-Based Systems Engineering combined with Addiction Science to represent a framework for improved understanding of substance use as a healthcare structure. Systems modeling language is used to develop a descriptive model of the system architecture, parameters, and interdependencies to illustrate the existing structure of substance use. This paper focuses on the representation and modeling of substance use behavior, which includes the antecedents and consequences of use. The authors have used alcohol use in college students as a case study. The authors propose that the use of systems engineering architecting coupled with Addiction Science will expand the current information base and improve our understanding of substance use. By using a systems engineering approach, the authors not only represent alcohol use in college students but also provide increased information to improve understanding of it thereby creating a framework that can be used to facilitate decision making about substance use.
Keywords
Substance Use, MBSE, SysML Model, Addiction Science.
Introduction
The United States Healthcare System is vast, complex, and multifaceted with substance use as one of the elements. Even though the rate of substance use in the United States is lowering substantially, the use of mind- and behavioraltering substances continues to take a significant toll on the health of individuals, families, and communities nationwide ("Substance Abuse," 2020). For this research, the term substance use includes the use of alcohol, prescription and over the counter (OTC) medicine, heroin, cocaine, marijuana, cigarettes, and other tobacco products (Goldberg, 2018). In 2017, 8.5 million American adults suffered from both a mental health disorder and a substance use disorder, or co-occurring disorders (Thomas, 2020). According to the 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), about three-fifths of young adults aged 18 to 25 were current alcohol users in each year between 2002 and 2015 (ranging from 58.3 to 62.0 percent) (Bose, Hedden, Lipari, & Park-Lee, 2018).
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