Syracuse Sun

Drug overdose rates skyrocketed in the United States during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the National Institutes of Health, more than 92,000 people died due to overdose in 2020. Public health experts worried early in the pandemic that lockdowns and other measures to control the spread of the virus could lead to more overdoses.

In work recently published in the “American Journal of Public Health“, Syracuse University researchers quantified how much the pandemic measures and economic policies impacted those rates. The study was led by Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs faculty members and Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion and Population Health researchers Douglas Wolf, Shannon Monnat, Emily Wiemers, Jennifer Karas Montez, and Yue Sun, with contributions from former Syracuse postdoctoral student Xue Zhang and National Institute on Drug Abuse program scientist Elyse Grossman.

Professor Douglas Wolf highlighted the key findings of the study, stating, "There are three main conclusions supported by this study. The increases in drug overdose mortality observed in many states during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic appear to have been exacerbated by state policies intended to control the spread of the virus... State policies intended to mitigate the economic impacts of the pandemic... appear also to have reduced drug overdose mortality... While the two types of policies had opposite effects, no states imposed economic support policies sufficient to fully offset the harmful consequences of the restrictions on individual and business activity."

Regarding the impact of lockdowns on drug overdose deaths, Wolf confirmed, "Yes, lockdown policies appear to have contributed to an increase in drug overdose deaths... This could have occurred due to loss of employment and income, adverse mental health outcomes, reduced access to treatment and harm reduction services, an inadequate supply of EMS responders, reductions in interdiction of illicit drugs or an increase in solitary drug use."

Shannon Monnat emphasized the importance of addressing the needs of people struggling with addiction during public health emergencies like the pandemic. Monnat stated, "The most forward-thinking and effective strategy to reduce overdoses in the long term is to reduce the upstream social and economic factors that lead people to use drugs and become addicted."

Looking towards future pandemic responses, Monnat highlighted the tradeoffs of restrictive policies, saying, "Our finding that restrictive policies were associated with larger increases in drug overdoses must be considered within a broader context of their reductions in COVID-19 mortality... The challenge for policymakers is to find the ideal balance that will save the most lives possible."

The study sheds light on the complex interplay between pandemic policies, economic support measures, and drug overdose rates, providing valuable insights for policymakers and public health officials in crafting effective responses to future health crises.