August 30, 2024 By Dr. Nora Volkow
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Saturday, August 31, is International Overdose Awareness Day, when we collectively remember those who have lost their lives to drug overdose, support those who grieve those losses, and offer encouragement to those who seek recovery from addiction. It is also an opportunity to share new knowledge about the overdose crisis and strategies for confronting it. There is some very good news this year: Provisional data from the CDC show that, overall, overdose deaths dropped by 7.5% in the 12 months ending March, 2024, the largest decline in decades. It is cause for optimism. But unfortunately, for some groups, we continue to see only greater escalation of the overdose crisis.
A recent New York Times article highlighted the tragic epidemic of overdose deaths among older Black men in Baltimore. It is a city that has been especially hard-hit by the overdose crisis, but the trend is being seen nationwide. Although white and Black people use drugs at similar rates, fatal overdoses have escalated in Black people at a much higher rate than in other groups over the past decade, and multiple recent studies have documented especially high rates of overdose deaths among older Black men.
Fentanyl, often in combination with stimulants, is driving increased overdose deaths in most demographic groups. In all groups, men are at greater risk of overdose than women, but additional factors, including age-related health disparities, social isolation, and lifetime exposure to structural racism, may be colliding to produce the rise in overdoses among older Black men especially, and it points to the urgent need for intervention.
A NIDA analysis found that between 2015 and 2023 (provisional data), there was a nearly 5-fold increase in overdose deaths among non-Hispanic Black men 55 and older (figure). In 2023, deaths in that demographic category were nearly triple the national average for that age group. The largest proportion of these deaths, and the steepest increases, involved fentanyl and cocaine. The overdose rate in older Black men is markedly higher than that for Black men overall. Source: National Institute on Drug Abuse. Click here to continue reading.