Racial/Ethnic, Social, and Geographic Trends in Overdose-Associated Cardiac Arrests Observed by US Emergency Medical Services During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

ABSTRACT:

Importance

Provisional records from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) through July 2020 indicate that overdose deaths spiked during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, yet more recent trends are not available, and the data are not disaggregated by month of occurrence, race/ethnicity, or other social categories. In contrast, data from emergency medical services (EMS) provide a source of information nearly in real time that may be useful for rapid and more granular surveillance of overdose mortality.

Objective

To describe racial/ethnic, social, and geographic trends in EMS-observed overdose-associated cardiac arrests during the COVID-19 pandemic through December 2020 and assess the concordance with CDC-reported provisional total overdose mortality

SUBMITTER: Friedman J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8156174 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature