Study: Severe opioid overdoses up by nearly one-third during pandemic

That's the key finding in a new analysis of data from 25 emergency departments in Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut, North Carolina, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Advertisement

"COVID-19, and the disruptions in every part of our social and work lives, made this situation even harder by increasing the risk of opioid misuse and relapse because people were separated from their social support and normal routines," said senior study author Molly Jeffery, a researcher at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

The study revealed that opioid overdose-related emergency department visits rose 28.5% last year, compared to 2018 and 2019. The raw numbers in the study were 3,486 in 2020; 3,285 in 2019; and 3,020 in 2018. RELATED Organ transplants safe from donors who abused drugs, died of an overdose

The researchers tied opioid overdoses to one in every 313 ER visits last year, compared with one in 400 in the previous two years.

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