The Death Toll Continues to Rise

142,000 Dead in 2016 Alone

 

According to a new study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania from the National Institute on Aging and by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Georgetown University.  The number of drug related deaths reported by the CDC are more than double previous estimates. According to these studies more than 142,000 lives were lost in 2016 alone due to drug related causes but the CDC to date has not included the mortality numbers of those affected by subsequent medical conditions acquired due to substance abuse.

These studies indicate that more than 389 lives are lost in the U.S. every day due to drug related causes.

The full impact of the drug epidemic on US mortality may extend well beyond deaths resulting directly from an overdose. In addition to the obvious connection with accidental poisoning, drug use may increase the risk of dying from other disease and injury processes in ways that are not recognized in assignments of underlying or even contributing cause of death.

A meta-analysis indicated that standardized mortality rates among opioid-dependent individuals are almost 15 times those of the general population; in addition to drug overdose, the most common causes of death among this group were AIDS, trauma, suicide, and liver-related causes (including viral hepatitis), and to a lesser extent, cardiovascular disease, cancer, other digestive diseases, and respiratory diseases.

Other studies suggest that drug users show elevated mortality from infectious diseases, particularly HIV/AIDS and viral hepatitis; respiratory diseases; external causes, especially suicide; mental/behavioral disorders; digestive diseases; circulatory disease; and cancer.

A Finnish study found that drug-coded deaths (i.e., the underlying cause was drug poisoning—regardless of intent—or a drug-related mental/behavioral disorder) accounted for only 36% of all drug-associated mortality, which includes all deaths where drugs were either the underlying or a contributing cause (i.e., the underlying cause was not drug-coded, but one of the contributing causes was a drug-related mental/behavioral disorder). Among deaths in which drugs were a contributing cause, the most common causes of death were accidents (30%), suicides (30%), and illnesses (31%), primarily diseases of the circulatory, respiratory, and digestive systems.

These associations suggest that, in addition to its direct effect on deaths from poisoning, drug use may inflate mortality resulting from infectious diseases, respiratory diseases, external causes, mental/behavioral disorders, digestive diseases, circulatory diseases, and neoplasms. In this study, we use annual death rates by state to model the relationship between drug-coded mortality—which serves as our indicator of the population-level prevalence of drug use—and mortality from other causes. Drug-coded mortality includes deaths from all drugs, medicaments, and biological substances (e.g., opioids, cannabinoids, sedatives/hypnotics, cocaine, other stimulants, hallucinogens, volatile solvents, and other psychoactive substances).

The full study can be found here: Estimating the impact of drug use on US mortality, 1999-2016

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