Journal of General Practice

Disparities in Opioid-related Mortality across United States Census Regions from 1999-2020

Abstract

Supriyanka Addimulam, Swapnil Gupta, Sindhuja Mahalingam and Namrata Walia*

Background: Opioid-related mortality has been on a sharp rise in the decade. This study aims to provide insight into the difference in mortality between white and black population in various census regions of the United States between 1999-2020.

Methods: The data was extracted from multiple causes of death files from CDC Wonder database. The International Classification of Disease (ICD-10) codes used to extract data include F11 (mental and behavioral disorders due to use of opioids); T40.0 (Opium); T40.1 (Heroin); T40.2 (Other opioids); T40.3 (Methadone); T40.4 (Other synthetic narcotics). The regression analysis was conducted using Joinpoint statistical software.

Results: The black population in the Midwest census region showed the highest age-adjusted mortality in the year 2020 (46.14 per 100,000). This was followed by the black (32.71 per 100,000) and white population (30.5 per 100,000) in the northeast census regions respectively. Overall, the opioid-related mortality followed a similar trend across all census regions. Except south census region where age-adjusted mortality was comparable between the black and white populations, blacks had higher opioid-related mortality in all other census regions.

Conclusion: This study provides concise evidence of inequality in opioid-related deaths among various US census regions. Policy changes focused to certain regions are required to significantly address the underlying factors related to disparities in opioid-related mortality among the black population.