Opioid overdose deaths increased drastically among older Black men over a decade
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Opioid overdose deaths among older adults increased significantly from 1999 to 2019, especially among non-Hispanic Black men, according to findings published in JAMA Network Open.
“Many of us think drug misuse is a problem of the young. However, older adults are experiencing an explosion in fatal opioid overdoses,” Maryann Mason, PhD, an associate professor in the Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics at Northwestern University, said in a press release.
In a longitudinal cross-sectional study, Mason and colleagues examined data on opioid overdose deaths among adults aged 55 years and older from the CDC’s Multiple Cause of Death database. Data on deaths that occurred between Jan. 1, 1999, and Dec. 31, 2019, were stratified by sex, race and ethnicity.
Overall, 79,893 adults in the U.S. died from an opioid overdose during the study period; 79.97% of these deaths were adults aged 55 to 64 years and 58.98% were men. Mason and colleagues reported that the number of opioid overdoses among older adults was 518 in 1999 and increased to 10,292 in 2019, a 1,886% increase, according to the release. Annual rates of opioid overdose deaths per 100,000 persons aged 55 years or older increased over time, ranging from 0.9 in 1999 to 10.7 in 2019.
In 2013, opioid overdose rates among non-Hispanic Black men began to diverge, according to the researchers. By 2019, the opioid overdose fatality rate among older non-Hispanic Black men was 40.03 per 100,000 persons. This rate was four times greater than the overall opioid overdose fatality rate for older adults. At its lowest, the rate of overdose deaths among non-Hispanic Black men was 2.24 deaths per 100,000 persons, according to Mason and colleagues. Conversely, Hispanic women and non-Hispanic Asian or Pacific Islander individuals aged 55 years and older had the lowest rates of overdose death; the rates never exceeded 3 deaths per 100,000 persons.
“As [opioid overdose] rates began increasing exponentially for Black men in 2013, fentanyl was becoming more common in the drug supply,” Mason told Healio. “This suggests to me that Black men may have had more involvement with illicit opioid use than other subgroups of older adults.”
High rates of drug use among Black men may also be linked to social determinants of health such as poverty, poor housing, lack of access to health care and substance use treatment, and experiences of trauma living in communities with high burdens of violence and low resources, she added.
Ending the opioid epidemic requires harm reduction in the short-term and improving social determinants of health in the long-term, Mason said.
References:
Mason M, et al. JAMA Netw Open. 2022;doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.42982.
Older adult opioid overdose death rates on the rise. https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2022/01/older-adult-opioid-overdose-death-rates-on-the-rise/&fj=1. Published Jan. 11, 2022. Accessed Jan. 11, 2022.