A photo of Makayla Cox, who died of a fentanyl overdose at age 16, is displayed among other portraits on “The Faces of Fentanyl” wall, which displays photos of Americans who died from a fentanyl overdose at the Drug Enforcement Administration headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, on July 13, 2022. Credit: GETTY IMAGES

drugs

One-third of US Adults Know Someone Who Died from Drug Overdose

A new study found that this personal loss to overdose spanned political parties and income levels, and that bereaved individuals are more likely to view addiction as a top policy priority.

More Americans between the ages of 18 to 45 die from opioid overdose than from any other cause, leading to a near-record high of 108,000 US drug overdose deaths in 2023. 

Emerging from this persistent, nationwide crisis is another staggering statistic: 32 percent of American adults—82.7 million individuals—know someone who has died of a drug overdose, according to a new study by researchers at Boston University School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, and the de Beaumont Foundation.

Published in JAMA Health Forum, the study also found that for nearly 20 percent of US adults, or 48.9 million people, the person they lost to overdose was a family member or close friend. 

Overdose loss was largely consistent across political parties, and people who experienced this loss were 37 percent more likely to view addiction as an important or very important policy issue, signaling that addiction is a bipartisan issue that could motivate voters ahead of the US presidential election this fall. 

These findings capture the profound scope of the opioid epidemic and its impact on the people left mourning the loss of overdose victims, including family members, friends, acquaintances, coworkers, classmates, and many more. These bereaved groups are often overlooked in research and in public discourse, but their collective experiences and concern about this crisis reflect the potential for them to unify and advocate for effective policy change on this issue at all levels of government.

“The opioid epidemic has been truly devastating in this country, accelerated by the COVID-19 moment,” says study senior author Sandro Galea, SPH dean and Robert A. Knox Professor. “Recognizing how close this epidemic is to all of us can—should—catalyze action to help mitigate it.”

The analysis was led by Alene Kennedy-Hendricks, assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Bloomberg School.

For the study, the team utilized data from a nationally representative survey of 2,326 US adults ages 18 and older, conducted in spring 2023. The survey was part of the fourth wave of the COVID-19 and Life Stressors Impact on Mental Health and Well-Being (CLIMB) study, an annual study launched in March 2020 by the Rockefeller Foundation-Boston University 3-D Commission and the de Beaumont Foundation to measure trends in mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. Led by Catherine Ettman, former chief of staff and director of strategic initiatives in the Office of the Dean at SPH and currently an assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Bloomberg School, the latest survey in the CLIMB Study aimed to assess the magnitude of losing a loved one to overdose, and the policy implications of this collective and widespread grief.

Among self-identified Democrat, Republican, and Independent participants, there was little difference in the prevalence of reported overdose loss, occurring among 29 percent, 33 percent, and 34 percent of participants, respectively. Similarly, overdose loss affected participants in all income groups, although those in households earning less than $30,000 annually were most likely to know someone who died of overdose, at 40 percent, compared to 26 percent of households earning $100,000 or more per year.

“This study contributes new evidence that the addiction crisis and the losses that come with it are common across Americans, but the burden is greater among those who are more economically vulnerable,” says Ettman, a coauthor of the study. “Addressing addiction can be a unifying theme in increasingly divided times.”

More than one million Americans have died from drug overdose since the opioid epidemic began in the late 1990s, driven over time by harmful use of prescription opioids, heroin, and most recently, fentanyl and other synthetic drugs, which have contributed to a sharp increase in fatal overdoses among adolescents and are currently linked to 70 percent of overdose deaths nationwide.

“The profound impact of drug overdose extends far beyond individual tragedies, underscoring the urgency of shifting the narrative around drug overdose from isolated incidents to a widespread public health crisis,” says study coauthor Salma Abdalla (SPH’16,’22), assistant professor of global health and epidemiology at SPH. “By recognizing the collective burden carried by those affected by overdose, we can galvanize support for comprehensive policies and interventions that address addiction, provide resources for prevention and treatment, and destigmatize those struggling with substance use.”

The study was funded by the de Beaumont Foundation. Additional coauthors include Sarah Gollust, professor in the Division of Health Policy & Management at the University of Minnesota; Sachini Bandara, assistant professor in the Department of Mental Health at the Bloomberg School; and Brian Castrucci, president and chief executive officer of the de Beaumont Foundation.

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available: Call or text 988, or chat on 988lifeline.org. The SAMHSA National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) also provides free, confidential, 24/7 treatment referral and information service in English and Spanish for individuals and families facing mental and/or substance use disorders.

For members of the BU community, Student Health Services offers Overdose Prevention Trainings each semester. Click here for more info.