The Opioid Epidemic: a Crisis Disproportionately Impacting Black Americans and Urban Communities.

ABSTRACT: The heroin epidemic has existed for decades, but a sharp rise in opioid overdose deaths (OODs) jolted the nation in the mid-twenty-teens and continues as a major health crisis to this day. Although the new wave of OODs was initially approached as a rural problem impacting a White/Caucasian demographic, surveillance records suggest severe impacts on African Americans and urban-dwelling individuals, which have been largely underreported. The focus of this report is on specific trends in OOD rates in Black and White residents in states with a significant Black urban population and declared as hotspots for OOD: (Maryland (MD), Illinois (IL), Michigan (MI), and Pennsylvania (PA)), and Washington District of Columbia (DC). We compare OODs by type of opioid, across ethnicities, across city/rural

SUBMITTER: Gondre-Lewis MC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9447354 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature