Citation

Friedman J, Hansen H. JAMA Psychiatry 2022; 79(8): 834.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, American Medical Association)

DOI

10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2022.1685

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In Reply We thank Harris for her interest in our research letter describing increases in drug overdose mortality in the US by race and ethnicity before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. We wholeheartedly agree that sex- and age-specific analyses of overdose deaths by race and ethnicity would be highly useful for understanding the evolution of the overdose crisis.The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need to improve the speed and granularity of mortality reporting, especially for rapidly changing causes of death, such as overdose. We were initially concerned when provisional records were made available showing large-magnitude increases in overdose deaths during the pandemic that did not include information by race or ethnicity. This disparity mirrored many other instances where race- and ethnicity-specific data were lacking during the pandemic, even as reporting times were shortened for many forms of information. To resolve this gap, we initially searched for proxy measures, including emergency medical services-observed overdose deaths, that could be used to assess increases in overdose deaths during the pandemic in a more timely fashion. Those efforts yielded concerning findings suggesting rising racial and ethnic inequities in overdose.

Language: en