A new study has shown that opioid-related deaths in the U.S. have jumped fourfold in the past 20 years.
In addition, the epidemic has shifted to the Eastern states.
The study was conducted by researchers at the Harvard University, Stanford University and the University of Toronto.
Previously, scientists have found that opioid-related deaths mainly occur rural, low-income areas Midwestern states.
But this study shows that the deaths have spread rapidly, particularly among the Eastern states.
In the present study, the researchers examined data from the National Center for Health Statistics and the U.S. Census.
They found the highest rates of opioid-related deaths occurred in 8 states, including Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, New Hampshire, and Ohio.
In addition, Penn and Florida have doubling death rates every two years. But the fastest rate increase occurs in Washington DC, where the opioid-related death rate increases 200% every year since 2013.
The data also showed that the opioid epidemic has evolved as three waves.
The first wave was from the 1990s until about 2010. It was linked to prescription painkillers.
The second wave was from 2010 until recently. It was linked to an increase in heroin-related deaths.
The third wave started in 2013, and it is linked to illicitly manufactured synthetic opioids, such as tramadol and fentanyl.
The results suggest that the epidemic has spread from rural to urban areas.
It is important to find opioid ‘hot spots’, where both mortality rates and increasing trends in mortality are high.
This could help develop better-targeted policies to help people with opioid use disorders.
The team also suggests that treating opioid use disorder should be researchers’ top priority to curb the problem.
The study lead author is Mathew Kiang, ScD, a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford.
The senior author is Monica Alexander, Ph.D., assistant professor of sociology and statistical sciences at the University of Toronto.
The research is published in JAMA Network Open.
Copyright © 2019 Knowridge Science Report. All rights reserved.
Further reading: JAMA Network Open.
