Opioid-Related Deaths in the U.S. Could Be Far Higher Than Previously Thought, Study Suggests – By Kashmira Gander (Newsweek) / Feb 27 2020
The number of deaths linked to opioids in the U.S. over the past two decades could be almost 30 percent higher than previously thought, a study has revealed.
Researchers looked at data on people who died of drug overdoses between 1999 to 2016 from a database kept by the National Center for Health Statistics in the U.S., which included a total of 632,331 cases. This enabled the team to match up information on death records with drug overdoses without a specific cause.
Of those, 78.2 percent of cases had information on the drug involved, while 21.8 percent didn’t. The team found that 71.8 percent of unclassified drug overdoses over the course of the study involved opioids, or approximately 28 percent more than previously reported. That amounts to 99,160 additional deaths linked to prescription opioids, heroin, or fentanyl.
The team found states including Alabama, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, and Indiana, had the highest discrepancies. According to a statement by the University of Rochester where the researchers are based, the number of reported opioid-related deaths in Pennsylvania, for instance, was 12,374, but the research puts the figure at 26,586.
Continue to article: https://www.newsweek.com/opioid-related-deaths-u-s-higher-previously-thought-study-1489523
