Opioids are involved in one in every five deaths of young adults in the US, a new study reveals.
In 2016, about 64,000 people died from opioid overdoses, making it the leading cause of death in those under 50.
The new report, from St Michael’s Hospital in Ontario found that the proportion of deaths involving opioids surged by nearly 300 percent between 2001 and 2016.
Its authors warn that their research, which follows up on previous analyses of young adults’ deaths in Canada, confirms that opioids are at the heart of a multinational public health issue in North America.
Opioid overdose deaths among young adults surged by nearly 300 percent in 2016 in the US
Opioid drug abuse and overdoses have reached a crisis point in the US, as well as Canada.
There are more overdose deaths in the two countries than anywhere else in the world, despite being high-income nations with robust public health campaigns against the opioid epidemic.
The tens of thousands of lives lost to overdoses has prompted President Donald Trump to declare a ‘public health emergency,’ but government agencies have struggled to slow the epidemic’s momentum.
‘Despite the amount of attention that has been placed on this public health issue, we are increasingly seeing the devastating impact that early loss of life from opioids is having across the United States,’ said study co-author Dr Tara Gomes.
Opioid addiction has hit the youngest populations hardest in recent years, killing more people under 50 than heart attacks or car crashes.
For the new St Michael’s study, the researchers sifted through and analyzed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) data on all deaths in the US between 2001 and 2016.
In every age group, the number proportion of opioid-related deaths was alarming, but young adults overdosed in droves.
In 2016 alone, 11,552 people between the ages of 25 and 34 died in ways that involved opioids, accounting for 13 percent of all deaths in that age group.
This age group accounted for fore than a quarter of the opioid-related deaths documented in the CDC’s database.
Deaths involving the powerful drugs were also involved in 9,747 deaths among people between 35 and 44 as well as as the deaths of 4,027 people between 15 and 24.
That is not to say, however, that people stop overdosing in middle age.
Among 45- to 54-year-olds, seven percent of all deaths in 2016 were still attributable to opioids.
Taken together, these data, published Friday in JAMA Network Open, showed that one in ever 65 deaths across all age groups were related to opioids.
‘Premature death from opioid-related causes imposes an enormous public health burden across the United States,’ the researchers wrote.
Opioids are involved in a relatively small proportion of the over-50 population in the US, but the study authors caution that the rate of misuse for this group is expected to be double what it was in 2004 by 2020.
Men, too, are disproportionately affected by the opioid epidemic, accounting for nearly 70 percent of deaths related to the drugs in 2016.
Misuse is not isolated to any one age group, gender or country, with Canada closely following the US with the second highest opioid death toll in the world.
But the demographics of addiction and overdose in the US are particularly worrisome.
‘The recent increase in deaths attributable to opioids among those aged 15 to 34 years highlights a need for targeted programs and policies that focus on improved addiction care and harm reduction measures in this high-risk population,’ the researchers wrote.