Rates of drug overdose deaths have decreased. Some experts think wider availability of overdose reversal medications has helped.
(Morgan Watkins / Side Effects Public Media)
The rate of drug overdose deaths fell about 4% across the country from 2022 to 2023, including in many parts of the Midwest, according to aFebruary reportfrom the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The data reflects a decrease in the age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths involving any opioid and synthetic opioids other than methadone, which includes fentanyl.
Some experts believe the drop reflects efforts to make life-saving medications that reverse overdoses more widely available.
Indiana saw one of the country’s biggest dips in overdose death rates in 2023 compared to 2022 at nearly 17%, according to the CDC. The data also showed that other states including Illinois, Ohio, Missouri and Kentucky have seen “significant” decreases between 9% and 10%.
This trend is not reflected across all states though. The age-adjusted overdose death rates have not seen a significant decrease in Iowa from 2022 to 2023, and Oklahoma has seen a nonsignificant increase in overdose death rates. While six states have seen significant increases during the same time period: Alabama, Alaska, California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.
Jon Agely, the deputy director of research at Prevention Insights at the School of Public Health at Indiana University, said the decline that states like Indiana have seen could be related to increased accessibility and usage of naloxone, a drug that can reverse the effects of an overdose. Since 2020, the state has distributedover 1 million dosesof Naloxone statewide.
“It's not a magic solution to everything, but these data are fatal overdoses, which is the specific thing that naloxone is intended to address,” he said.
Agely also pointed to the implementation of more overdose prevention programs and an increase of more than 600% in treatment beds since 2017 in residential addiction treatment facilities in the state.
Public health experts are encouraged overdose death rates are falling, sparing thousands of lives across the country. But they say prevention efforts need to continue.
Nationwide, there were still over 100,000 fatal drug overdosesin 2023.
“The next temptation is to say, ‘We can shift our investment now.’ I think it's important to have the infrastructure in place to mitigate the risk,” Agley said.
States across the country are receiving some $50 billion dollarsin opioid settlement funds.Those are dollars that drug makers, distributors, and stores agreed to pay as part of a settlement for selling and distributing opioid painkillers.
“Those dollars are going to continue to put emphasis and really help local communities build the infrastructure and the programming that they need to help people find recovery,” saidDouglas Huntsinger, Indiana’s executive director for drug prevention, treatment, and enforcement.
“That's where our recovery infrastructure comes in. How do we help people sustain their sobriety in the communities in which they live?”
Contact Health Reporter Benjamin Thorp at bthorp@wfyi.org.
Side Effects Public Media is a health reporting collaboration based at WFYI in Indianapolis. We partner with NPR stations across the Midwest and surrounding areas — including KBIA and KCUR in Missouri, Iowa Public Radio, Ideastream in Ohio and WFPL in Kentucky.
