Majority of Youth Overdose Deaths From 2018 to 2022 Were Driven by Fentanyl Alone

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by MedicalXpress.

Fatal drug overdoses among youth aged 15 to 24 in the United States involving synthetic opioids alone—not mixed with other substances—soared by 168% over the five-year time period from 2018 to 2022, a study shows. Published online in the journal Pediatrics, the work also found that youth overdose rates and drug combinations varied significantly across age, sex and race/ethnicity.

Led by NYU Grossman School of Medicine, the new study is the first, say investigators, to identify which specific combinations of drugs drove synthetic opioid-involved fatal overdoses among young people across sociodemographic groups over time.

Overdoses that involved synthetic opioids alone—predominantly fentanyl—had the highest rates of fatalities when compared to overdoses involving other drug combinations examined by the researchers. This was regardless of age, sex and race/ethnicity.

Analyzing data from the National Center for Health Statistics, the researchers characterized trends in overdose death involving synthetic opioids (predominantly fentanyl) alone, as well as in combination with five common other drugs (benzodiazepines, heroin, prescription opioids, cocaine, and other stimulants) among youth aged 15–24 across age, sex and race/ethnicity over five years (from 2018 to 2022).

The investigators found that during the five-year study period, overdoses involving synthetic opioids alone increased by 168%—the highest rates of fatalities compared to those that included a combination of the examined drugs, regardless of age, sex and race/ethnicity.

After deaths due to synthetic opioids/fentanyl alone, the next highest rates of fatal overdoses involved fentanyl combined with cocaine or another stimulant; however, rates differed by age, sex, race/ethnicity and over time.

“Before we looked at the data, we thought we would find that the majority of fatal youth overdoses involved fentanyl combined with other substances, such as prescription opioids or cocaine,” said Noa Krawczyk, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Population Health, and senior author of the study.

“Instead, we found the opposite—that most deaths were caused by fentanyl alone. Our analysis sheds light on the changing nature and risks of the drug supply and how they impact key demographic groups. Some may think they are taking one substance but are actually exposed to another.”