This fall, the Center on Addiction and Public Policy began an examination of 2022-23 state overdose data. We’ve seen a dip in overdose deaths, but given past disparities, we took a closer look behind the numbers to see how all demographic groups were faring. To do that, we filed public disclosure requests with states, and to date, we’ve received overdose death data from 26 states. The data we collected revealed continued disparities in overdose death rates between White and other demographic groups.
Notably, in 22 out of 25 states (88%) overdose death rates were worse for Black populations when compared to White populations. This tracks other research showing disproportionate rates of overdose death in Black populations, as well as predictions of such disproportionate rates until 2025.
Limitations: We have only obtained data from 26 states and will update this blog when we have a more complete data set. In addition, due to limitations on state data, it is difficult to provide data on American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN), Hispanic, and Asian overdose deaths because not every state accounts for these demographic groups.
For AI/AN populations, in the 14 states with these data, 7 (50%) reported worse outcomes for the AI/AN population.
For the 20 states where we received data on Hispanic populations, 15 (75%) reported worse outcomes for the Hispanic population, compared to the White population.
While Asian Americans have historically low rates of overdose death, of the 12 states that report statistics for Asian Americans, 5 (42%) reported worse outcomes for the Asian population, compared to the White population.
