Substance misuse deaths up 20% in 2020 – highest ever, report finds
Deaths associated with alcohol, drugs, and suicide took the lives of 186,763 Americans in 2020, a 20% 1-year increase in the combined death rate, according to a report by Trust for America’s Health and Well Being Trust.
According to the joint release, 2020 also logged the highest number of substance misuse deaths ever recorded for a single year.
The report revealed that the overall drug-induced death rate increased by 30%, largely driven by increases in deaths due to use of synthetic opioids and psychostimulants, according to the release. In addition, the rate of drug-induced death rose for all but one population group — those older than 75 years — and large increases were also measured in underrepresented communities, among youth 17 years and younger and young adults 18 to 34 years old, as well as in the South and West regions of the country.
“The mortality trends from this year’s report yet again underscore the urgent need to take action,” Benjamin F. Miller, PsyD, president of Well Being Trust, told Healio. “These lives we lost are our friends, our family, and leave our community left wondering what we could have done differently. From the local level to the national level, we have to sound our loudest alarms and demand systemic mental health reform that will bring help to all people, wherever they are.”
According to the report authors and other experts, the increase in alcohol and drug deaths in 2020 was exacerbated by factors such as a continued rise in synthetic opioid and psychostimulant overdoses, anxiety, stress, grief, disruption to substance misuse recovery programs and financial hardship many experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Recommendations within the report to address these issues at the local, state and federal levels include investment in programs that promote health and prevent substance misuse and suicide, addressing the twin substance misuse and overdose crises, and working to transform the mental health and substance abuse prevention system.
“It is imperative that officials at every level of government act on the recommended policies in this report,” J. Nadine Gracia, MD, MSCE, president and CEO of the Trust for America’s Health, said in the release. “The data are shockingly clear: Lives are at risk in every community due to alcohol, drugs and suicide, and communities that experience disadvantage because of longstanding social, economic and environmental inequities suffer a disproportionate impact.”