The United States has a higher overdose mortality rate than any other rich country

The United States is in the midst of a drug overdose crisis, caused by opioid-related deaths. But a new study from the University of Southern California shows just how horrific the situation is historically. He revealed that drug overdose mortality in America had outpaced all countries as rich – with an annual death rate almost 30 times greater than that of countries like Japan and Italy.

USC sociologist, Jessica Ho, examined the evolution of overdose deaths in 18 high-income countries over a 30-year period, dating back to 1994.

During the 1990s, she found that the death rate in the United States was clearly in the middle of the pack, while in countries such as Finland and Sweden it was slightly higher than the rest. But in 2000, four years after the arrival of the powerful painkiller OxyContin on the market, it was already growing steadily. In 2003, the mortality rate among American men was the highest of all countries; in 2005, it was the same for women. The United States has not dropped the first place since.

His findings were published Thursday in Population and Development Review.

"The United States is experiencing an epidemic of drug overdose of unprecedented magnitude, not only judging by its own history, but also compared to that of other high-income countries," he said. -she writes. "For more than a decade, the United States has had the highest drug overdose mortality rate of any peer country."

In 2013 (last year, Ho had data for each country), the overdose mortality rate for men was 16.97 deaths per 100,000 population in the United States, after adjusting for the number of deaths. 39; age. By contrast, Japan's rate was 0.60 deaths per 100,000 men, a difference more than 28 times. On average, drug overdose mortality in the United States was 3.5 times higher than in other countries in 2013. And even compared to Finland and Sweden, the mortality rate was still 60% higher .

Ho's research is not the first to show how the crisis is an uniquely American problem. A study last year found that, compared to European countries, the number of organs available for transplantation of deceased donors in the United States has increased significantly in recent years, almost entirely because of the increased number of deaths by overdose. But Ho says his study is the first to make such a complete comparison of the United States and similar countries.

His findings also seem to confirm the suspicion that the crisis is directly responsible for widening the gap in life expectancy between the United States and other countries. US life expectancy has been lagging for some time now, but the sheer number of overdose deaths, which often occur among youth or middle-aged people, is further exacerbating us. In 2013, she estimated that the life expectancy gap would have averaged 9% and 34% lower for men and women, respectively, without these additional deaths.

"While drug overdose alone does not represent the poor and deteriorating performance of the United States compared to other high-income countries, it is an important contributor to the recent increase in the US life expectancy deficit. United States, "she wrote.

Surprisingly, Ho's findings might underestimate how much the US is far worse compared to others, given that the most recent year of the study was 2013. In 2014, 47,000 people have died from an overdose in the United States. their number has climbed to more than 70,000, with more than 40,000 deaths related to opioids (many deaths may involve more than one drug). This increase is mainly due to the availability of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, which are more potent and sometimes even sold wrongly in the street, along with other safer drugs.

On the other hand, while non-US countries have largely avoided or severely limited the use of prescription opioid analgesics, neighboring Canada has experienced its own version of the more modest crisis. And the pharmaceutical industry as a whole is trying to expand its territory to the poorest countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia, where access to analgesics is historically low. The industry – including Purdue Pharma, makers of OxyContin – has been accused of conducting the same type of misleading campaigns they used in the US to promote opioid use in those countries.

According to Ho, this is a strategy that many public health experts have compared to the establishment of tobacco companies in low-income countries after losing their fight to keep smokers smoking in the United States. United and elsewhere.

"If OxyContin follows the same path, it will be a major problem because regulatory structures, health systems and surveillance systems are much less developed in low-income countries, making them more vulnerable to aggressive marketing by companies. pharmaceuticals. It is quite possible that serious epidemics of drug overdose will develop without warning in these countries, "she warned.