USA. Overdoses in older blacks, and overdoses from cocaine, are rising but being ignored
USA. Overdoses in older blacks, and overdoses from cocaine, are rising but being ignored
Increasing death rates from opioid overdoses among whites have been widely documented, but less well-known is the increase in cocaine-related overdoses among blacks, as the National Cancer Institute (NCI) reported last week in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Using complete U.S. death certificate data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, Meredith S. Shiels, Ph.D., and colleagues compared data from 2000–2003 with data from 2012–2015. They found that total overdose death rates increased among blacks (6.1 to 9.0 per 100,000 person years), Hispanics (4.2 to 6.0) and whites (5.6 to 15.5). Broken down by age and race, however, increases were most pronounced for older blacks (men over 50 and women over 45). (alcoholismdrugabuseweekly.com, 11.12.2017)