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A lot of focus has been on controlling COVID19 (rightfully so), but let's talk about a huge problem getting less attention:
Opioid overdoses are up 47% from this time last year.
The opioid epidemic is getting worse because of COVID19 - let's talk about why and what to do
Opioid overdoses are up 47% from this time last year.
The opioid epidemic is getting worse because of COVID19 - let's talk about why and what to do
First - I want to commend @MariahTimms and @BrettKelman for the fantastic article in @Tennessean: The other crisis': Opioid deaths soar amid coronavirus outbreak"
This has tons of great information about the who, the where, and the why.
https://tinyurl.com/yb4d5jxs
This has tons of great information about the who, the where, and the why.
https://tinyurl.com/yb4d5jxs
Here is a quote from the article: "Drug overdoses kill an average of approximately 1.7 Nashvillians a day, according to this data. At that pace continued, 2020 deaths will have surpassed the 2018 total numbers by the end of July and would eclipse 2019's total by mid-October."
This trend is true in other cities as well. But why is this happening? I am going to tell you about some research on the factors that exacerbate substance use disorder severity and how this fits into the pandemic.
Social isolation/stress potentiate drug use (work by @SaraJonesLab, @nanopharmNC, @Bangasser_Lab @walkerdm79). Living in a pandemic is stressful, high rates of unemployment add to stress levels, and many people are socially isolated - these can increase drug taking/vulnerability
Also, we know enrichment, social interaction, and rewarding experiences reduce drug-taking in animal models (see work by @yavinshaham, @SergeAhmed, @MarcoVenniro @LCneuroscience and others)- and these options are limited in a pandemic
The increase in these factors - deaths, overdose - indicates that we are seeing a surge in individuals developing substance use disorder. This likely isn’t going to be a transient spike that goes back down after COVID is gone. This is going to require a long-term community effort
There are also racial disparities in how substance use disorder affects individuals and how it is treated that are critical to talk about when figuring out how to approach this problem - @drugmonkeyblog and @effatma regularly discuss this and are great follows.
I would urge you to educate yourself about this problem. Twitter is a great forum and there are a lot of wonderful researchers talking about what they do to follow: @VCARScience @WilliamStoops @WakeFerris @jlweiner1 @Lorenzo__Leggio @MarinaP63 @JenniBlackford @TXAlcoholLab
I've tagged a few people here and will tag more, but if you talk about this issue respond with a bit about what you do so people can follow and learn more.
