Mass. sees largest decline in opioid-related deaths in more than a decade
Black people, however, suffered more opioid-related overdose deaths last year than in any of the previous five years. The number of deaths from opioid related overdoses fell by 10 percent in 2023, the largest decrease Massachusetts has seen in over a decade, according to state data. However, this decline was not mirrored in the state's Black population, which saw more deaths last year than any other five years. The state's Department of Public Health reported that last year's total of 2,125 deaths was still the third highest since 2001, more than double the number in 2013. The decline suggests investments in harm reduction strategies are working, despite the increasing death toll from the drug crisis. Since 2023 the state has distributed 196,500 kits of naloxone and given out over 504,000 fentanyl test strips. The drug crisis has killed 25,000 people in Massachusetts since 2000.
Publicados : 11 meses atrás por Jason Laughlin no Health
The overall decline, however, wasn’t mirrored in the state’s Black population, which suffered more opioid-related overdose deaths last year than in any of the previous five years.
The number of people who died from opioid related overdoses fell by 10 percent in 2023, the largest decrease Massachusetts has seen in more than a decade, according to newly released state data.
And last year’s tally of 2,125 deaths was still the third highest since 2001—more than double the number in 2013— according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, which released the data Wednesday.
“We have so much more work to do,” said Deirdre Calvert, director of the state’s Bureau of Substance Addiction Services at a briefing on the new data Tuesday. “We really need to focus on the communities we’re missing and the communities we’re not able to reach.”
Prescription pills, heroin, and, more recently, fentanyl have contributed to opioid-related addiction and deaths. Overdose deaths began skyrocketing about a decade ago, state data show, as synthetic opioids such as fentanyl became more common. In 2022 a record 2,357 people died of overdoses.
Fentanyl was present in 90 percent of overdose victims that received toxicology tests last year, according to the state’s 2023 data. Xylazine, an animal tranquilizer also known as tranq, was present in 9 percent of those tested, an increase from 5 percent in 2023.
After seeing deaths increase every year since 2019, amid a drug epidemic that has killed 25,000 people in Massachusetts since 2000, those involved in combatting the opioid crisis say downward-trending numbers are a welcome change. And early signs indicate that decline may continue this year. DPH estimated fewer people died of opioid-related overdoses between January and March of 2024 than during the same period last year.
“The numbers may not be what we’d like them to be, but they still represent lives,” said Julie Burns, president and chief executive of RIZE Massachusetts, a Boston nonprofit working to prevent overdoses.
Seven of the state’s 14 counties reported declines in opioid-related overdose deaths, the state data showed. Dukes County’s six deaths in 2023 equalled their count in 2022. Of the six counties that reported increases, Suffolk’s was the largest. The county, which includes Boston, reported 26 more deaths in 2023, a more than 8 percent increase over the prior year.
Nationally, opioid-related overdose deaths declined by 3.7 percent last year, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Calvert and Dr. Robbie Goldstein, the state’s public health commissioner, said at the briefing that last year’s decline suggests investments in harm reduction strategies are working even as drugs are becoming increasingly lethal. Since 2023, DPH has distributed 196,500 kits of naloxone that reversed at least 4,639 overdoses. The state has also handed out more than 504,000 fentanyl test strips.
“Our drug checking program here in Massachusetts is second to none and allows us to understand the lethality of the drug supply,” Goldstein said.
SafeSpot, a call center where operators talk on the phone with people using drugs and contact emergency responders if the caller overdoses, has monitored more than 2,700 “use events” since 2023, according to the program’s web site, and intervened during 13 overdoses. The Opioid Recovery and Remediation Fund has received $180 million so far from opioid settlements, and has funded access to harm reduction kits, sterile syringes, mobile outreach, and infectious disease screening and treatment.
The state committed $700 million to substance addiction prevention and treatment in the current fiscal year. The Healey administration has also publicly supported safe consumption sites, which would provide people with a place to use drugs under supervision. Studies show the sites can prevent deaths and reduce infectious diseases from spreading, but none have been established in the state.
Mobile programs are particularly important in the state’s most rural communities, where the rate of overdose deaths, 35.6 per 100,000 residents, was higher than anywhere else in Massachusetts, said Burns, of RIZE. Mobile programs can provide naloxone, wound care, and medication in areas where access to care is in short supply.
“You bring the care to them,” she said. “With all of the stigma that people with substance use disorder have faced when accessing services, this can be a game changer.”
Mobile services are also critical to reaching non-white communities, said Allyson Pinkhover, director of substance use services at Brockton Neighborhood Health Center. Brockton’s population is about 54 percent Black, according to the US Census, and her organization’s mobile clinic has been found to have a much more diverse patient base than brick and mortar facilities providing similar services.
Mobile clinics reduce the structural obstacles that make Black Americans less likely to access health care nationwide, she said.
“All of the things that are really set by structural racism are the things that are going to keep Black, Hispanic, and indigenous people from getting care,” Pinkhover said.
Despite state initiatives to improve support and access to care for the state’s non-white communities, overdoses among Black residents continued to rise. More than 84 out of every 100,000 Black men in the state died as a consequence of opioid use, the state data showed.
“This is yet another example of racism as a serious public health threat, and it reflects the decades of racism inherent to the war on drugs,” Goldstein said.
Leo Beletsky, professor of law and health sciences at Northeastern University and an addiction expert, said higher incarceration rates among Black men are a significant driver of overdoses. People who had been in prison are much more likely to overdose and die after their release, Beletsky said. Access to substance abuse treatment, including medication, also tends to be more difficult for Black Americans.
“The disparities between white and nonwhite communities are widening,” he said. “That’s part of a larger pattern of health disparities”
Pinkhover, the Brockton worker, described having mixed emotions when she saw the state data Tuesday. The number of deaths last year is discouraging, she said, but she couldn’t help but express a “tiny sigh of relief,” she said, that there were some signs of improvement.
“You definitely have to take the small victories you get in this,” she said, “because otherwise I think this work runs you into the ground.”
Jason Laughlin can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @jasmlaughlin.
Tópicos: Drug Trafficking