The study emphasizes the need for targeted prevention and intervention strategies, advocating for increased treatment access and subsidized naloxone for the economically disadvantaged
According to a new study that was released by the RAND Corporation on October 6, 2023, the frequency of drug overdose deaths among people in the United States who do not have a college education has significantly increased. The number of people who have died from an overdose has nearly doubled in only three short years, and the stats are particularly concerning for persons who do not have a high school diploma.
The paper draws attention to widening educational disparities that have been linked to fatalities caused by drug overdoses. According to author David Powell, "The analysis shows that the opioid crisis increasingly has become a crisis involving Americans without any college education." According to the findings of the study, there has been a discernible widening of racial and ethnic divides since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This new study, which was recently published in the JAMA Health Forum, builds on previous demographic analyses of the opioid crisis. It sheds light on the significance of education, which has been generally overlooked in discussions of "deaths of despair."
The National Vital Statistics System reports that approximately 70 percent of the 912,057 persons aged 25 and over who passed away as a result of an overdose between the years 2000 and 2021 did not complete a higher education program. Within this population, the death rate due to drug overdoses has climbed from 12 per 100,000 in the year 2000 to 82 in the year 2021. persons with some college education had a mortality rate that was 18.6 times higher than it had been previously (4.6 deaths per 100,000 persons).
Between the years 2018 and 2021, there was an increase of 83% in the number of deaths caused by overdoses among people who had not completed high school. According to the researcher, "Understanding who is most affected by overdose deaths provides critical information about how resources, such as access to treatment and preventive medicine like naloxone, should be more effectively allocated."
