• HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
Wednesday, July 6, 2022
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Health

Nearly 108,000 overdose deaths in 2021: Pitt team forecast devastating toll five years ago

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
May 24, 2022
in Health
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

PITTSBURGH, May 24, 2022 – A grim prediction made half a decade ago by University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health epidemiologists and modelers has come true: More than 100,000 people are now dying from drug overdoses annually in the U.S. The milestone comes as the International Journal of Drug Policy publishes a special section of the June issue reflecting on the exponential growth in drug-related deaths the Pitt team uncovered in 2017.

Donald Burke MD

Credit: Courtesy of University of Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH, May 24, 2022 – A grim prediction made half a decade ago by University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health epidemiologists and modelers has come true: More than 100,000 people are now dying from drug overdoses annually in the U.S. The milestone comes as the International Journal of Drug Policy publishes a special section of the June issue reflecting on the exponential growth in drug-related deaths the Pitt team uncovered in 2017.

The special section – based around the Pitt team’s landmark research article in Science that analyzed nearly four decades of U.S. drug overdose data – contains commentary by four teams of epidemiologists, addiction specialists, modelers and drug policy experts, as well as an update from the original authors and an editorial by one of the journal’s senior editors.

“Since 1979, drug overdose deaths in the U.S. have inexorably climbed along a near-perfect exponential curve, despite changes in the popularity of different drugs, new drug control policies, changing demographics, economic upswings and downturns, wars – and now a global pandemic,” said Donald S. Burke, M.D., Distinguished University Professor of Health Science and Policy in Pitt Public Health’s Department of Epidemiology and senior author of the Science publication. “The fact that we’re still seeing this exponential growth in another five years of data – 413,000 more young Americans dead – shows that we really don’t understand the deep drivers of the epidemic.”

Following their Science publication, Burke and his colleagues published several more articles involving U.S. drug overdose death data. Notably, the team reported in Nature Medicine that the generation a person was born into – Silent Generation, Baby Boomer, Generation X or Millennial – strongly predicts how likely they are to die from a drug overdose, and at what age.

And, when drug overdose deaths diverged from their predictions, taking a celebrated downturn in 2018, the team showed in the journal Addiction that it was a result of a decrease in supply of the potent synthetic opioid carfentanil, and not a sign of the drug overdose epidemic abating. Sure enough, overdose deaths snapped right back onto the exponential curve in the following year.

“There are theories, but nobody has an explanation for why drug overdose deaths so consistently stick to this exponential growth pattern, marching ever upward at an annual pace of 7.4%,” said Hawre Jalal, M.D., Ph.D., who was lead author of the Science paper while at Pitt and is now at the University of Ottawa. “Five years ago, leaders in the drug addiction and policy fields called our findings a coincidence. We need to stop denying that this exponential growth will continue if we don’t get at the root causes and fix them.”

In his editorial introducing the International Journal of Drug Policy special edition, Peter Reuter, Ph.D., distinguished professor in the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, noted that although the Science manuscript had been cited by scientists hundreds of times since its original publication to support that drug overdose rates are rising, no one had investigated the underlying cause of the relentless increase.

“It’s hard to imagine that this growth rate can continue much longer,” Reuter writes. “The notion that we might see 200,000 fatal overdoses annually in 2030 is simply too frightening, though we would have made the same statement in 2010 when the figure was a mere 38,000.”

In their article for the special section, Burke and Jalal suggest that a “systems” analysis including, but not limited to, surveillance data from electronic health records, urine screening, wastewater testing, law enforcement drug seizures, surveys to measure societal well-being and despair, and the economics of the drug trade will be necessary to understand the exponential growth. Computational models and simulations will then need to be designed to guide and test interventions, they said.

“Improved understanding of the deep causal drivers of the epidemic may be necessary to bend the curve,” they conclude. “Unless something different is done, the death toll will probably continue to increase exponentially.”

#  #  #

About the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health

Founded in 1948, the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health is a top-ranked institution of seven academic departments partnering with stakeholders locally and globally to create, implement and disseminate innovative public health research and practice. With hands-on and high-tech instruction, Pitt Public Health trains a diverse community of students to become public health leaders who counter persistent population health problems and inequities. 

www.upmc.com/media



Journal

International Journal of Drug Policy

DOI

10.1016/j.drugpo.2022.103674

Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

Keith Jarosinski

Study explores unusual interaction between viruses, live vaccines

July 6, 2022
Syngap Research Fund Logo

Leon & Friends, SynGAP Research Fund USA & SRF Europe partner to grant €180,000 to Professor Courtney of Turku Bioscience Centre, Finland

July 6, 2022

Adolescent childbirth remains linked to poor outcomes for both mother and child in Cote d’Ivoire

July 6, 2022

Shapeshifting microrobots can brush and floss teeth

July 5, 2022

POPULAR NEWS

  • blank

    Telescopic contact lenses

    40 shares
    Share 16 Tweet 10
  • Oregon State University research finds evidence to suggest Pacific whiting skin has anti-aging properties that prevent wrinkles

    38 shares
    Share 15 Tweet 10
  • Emerging Omicron subvariants BA.2.12.1, BA.4 and BA.5 are inhibited less efficiently by antibodies

    37 shares
    Share 15 Tweet 9
  • The pair of Orcas deterring Great White Sharks – by ripping open their torsos for livers

    37 shares
    Share 15 Tweet 9

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Tags

Urogenital SystemVehiclesVaccineVirologyWeather/StormsVirusViolence/CriminalsUniversity of WashingtonUrbanizationZoology/Veterinary ScienceWeaponryVaccines

Recent Posts

  • “Unlocking” sarcopenic obesity: A review in portal hypertension & cirrhosis provides clarity on key aspects of disease impact and treatment
  • Death by choking on food: A new review of coronial findings
  • How scientist tested the effect of multicolor lighting on improving people’s psychological state
  • Lab-grown “mini-kidneys” unlock secrets of a rare disease
  • Contact Us

© 2019 Bioengineer.org - Biotechnology news by Science Magazine - Scienmag.

No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

© 2019 Bioengineer.org - Biotechnology news by Science Magazine - Scienmag.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
Posting....