NEW YORK – The decline in drug overdose deaths in the United States appears to have continued this year, with experts hopeful of sustained improvement in the country's lingering epidemic.
Preliminary figures show there were around 97,000 overdose deaths in the 12 months to June 30. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data It was released on Wednesday. This is a 14% decrease from an estimated 113,000 in the previous 12 months.
“This is a pretty remarkable and rapid reversal in drug overdose mortality rates,” said Brandon Marshall, a researcher at Brown University who studies overdose trends.
Overdose death rates began to rise steadily in the 1990s due to opioid painkillers, followed by a wave of deaths from other opioids such as heroin and, more recently, illegal fentanyl. Preliminary data showed a small effect decline The tally released Wednesday showed the downward trend continuing.
Of course, there have been moments in the past few years when there have been overdose deaths in the United States. It seems like we've hit a plateau. Or it started to fall, just stand up againMarshall pointed out.
“This looks like something substantial and lasting,” Marshall said. “I think there is real reason for hope here.”
Experts are unsure of the reason for the decline, but point to a combination of possible factors.
One is the new coronavirus infection (COVID-19). During the worst days of the pandemic, addiction treatment was difficult to access, people were socially isolated, and there was no one around to help if they overdosed.
“Drug overdose deaths rose sharply during the pandemic, so it makes sense that they would decline,” said Farida Ahmad of the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.
Still, the number of overdose deaths remains far higher than earlier numbers in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Recent numbers may be the result of years of efforts to increase the availability of drugs to reverse overdoses naloxonesaid Erin Winstanley, a University of Pittsburgh professor who studies drug overdose trends for addiction treatments such as buprenorphine.
Marshall said these efforts will likely be supported by settlements from opioid-related lawsuits brought by state, local and Native American governments against drug companies, wholesalers and pharmacies. Settlement funds are being rolled out in small towns and large cities across the United States, and in some cities started spending money About naloxone and other countermeasures.
Some experts have questions about changes in drug supply. The sedative xylazine is increasingly found in illegally manufactured fentanyl, and experts are accurately classifying it. how it affects Overdose.
Reports of overdose deaths are decreasing in 45 states, according to the latest data from the CDC. The increases occurred in Alaska, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington.
The most dramatic declines were seen in North Carolina and Ohio, but CDC officials expressed alarm. Some jurisdictions have experienced delays in getting death records to federal statisticians, and in North Carolina in particular, understaffing at the state medical examiner's office has slowed death investigations. The CDC made the estimates to try to explain incomplete death records, but declines in some areas may ultimately prove to be less dramatic than initial numbers suggest.
Another limitation of the preliminary data is that it does not detail what is happening in different groups of people. Recent studies point to overdose deaths among Black people and Native Americans. has grown disproportionately.
“We really need more data from the CDC to know whether these declines are being experienced across all racial-ethnic subgroups,” Marshall said.
