U.S. Drug Overdose Deaths Started Declining in 2023
By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter
Medically reviewed by Drugs.com
TUESDAY, June 24, 2025 -- U.S. drug overdose deaths (DODs) started declining in 2023, with a faster decline for opioid-related versus stimulant-related DOD rates, according to a study published online June 12 in JAMA Network Open.
Lori Ann Post, Ph.D., from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, and colleagues conducted a repeated cross-sectional study of DOD rates from January 2015 to October 2024 to identify when U.S. DOD rates began to decelerate.
Between January 2015 and October 2024, 800,645 U.S. residents died of a drug overdose. The researchers observed an increase in the national DOD rate from 14.54 to 33.24 per 100,000 population from January 2015 to August 2023. The monthly DOD rate declined by −0.36 per 100,000 population from August 2023 to February 2024, accelerating to a decline of −0.84 per 100,000 population through October 2024 and reaching 24.29 per 100,000. The decline was faster for opioid-related versus stimulant-related DOD rates (−0.80 versus −0.25 per 100,000 population). The national DOD rate peaked in August 2023, while rates in the Northeast, Midwest, and South census regions peaked in October 2022; the West peaked a year later. Death rates continued to accelerate among adults aged 55 years or older by late 2023 and among American Indian or Alaska Native, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, and multiracial populations (0.07, 0.02, 1.70, 0.20, and 0.28 per 100,000 population, respectively), although there was a slowing in the pace of increase.
"The United States experienced a significant deceleration in DODs from 2015 through 2024," the authors write. "However, this trend was not uniform across geographic regions, demographic subpopulations, or drug types."
One author disclosed ties to Celero Systems; he and a second author disclosed ties to law companies.
Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.
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Posted June 2025
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