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Fatal drug use in the COVID-19 pandemic response: Changing trends in drug-involved deaths before and after stay-at-home orders in Louisiana

The effect of disaster events on increasing drug-involved deaths has been clearly shown in previous literature. As the COVID-19 pandemic led to stay-at-home orders throughout the United States, there was a simultaneous spike in drug-involved deaths around the country. The landscape of a preexisting...

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Autores principales: Leonhardt, Maxwell M., Spartz, John R., Shankar, Arti, Murphy, Stephen A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10126274/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37113181
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1117841
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author Leonhardt, Maxwell M.
Spartz, John R.
Shankar, Arti
Murphy, Stephen A.
author_facet Leonhardt, Maxwell M.
Spartz, John R.
Shankar, Arti
Murphy, Stephen A.
author_sort Leonhardt, Maxwell M.
collection PubMed
description The effect of disaster events on increasing drug-involved deaths has been clearly shown in previous literature. As the COVID-19 pandemic led to stay-at-home orders throughout the United States, there was a simultaneous spike in drug-involved deaths around the country. The landscape of a preexisting epidemic of drug-involved deaths in the United States is one which is not geographically homogenous. Given this unequal distribution of mortality, state-specific analysis of changing trends in drug use and drug-involved deaths is vital to inform both care for people who use drugs and local policy. An analysis of public health surveillance data from the state of Louisiana, both before and after the initial stay-at-home order of the COVID-19 pandemic, was used to determine the effect the pandemic may have had on the drug-involved deaths within this state. Using the linear regression analysis of total drug-involved deaths, as well as drug-specific subgroups, trends were measured based on quarterly (Qly) deaths. With the initial stay-at-home order as the change point, trends measured through quarter 1 (Q1) of 2020 were compared to trends measured from quarter 2 (Q2) of 2020 through quarter 3 (Q3) of 2021. The significantly increased rate of change in Qly drug-involved deaths, synthetic opioid-involved deaths, stimulant-involved deaths, and psychostimulant-involved deaths indicates a long-term change following the initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Changes in the delivery of mental health services, harm reduction services, medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD), treatment services, withdrawal management services, addiction counseling, shelters, housing, and food supplies further limited drug-involved prevention support, all of which were exacerbated by the new stress of living in a pandemic and economic uncertainty.
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spelling pubmed-101262742023-04-26 Fatal drug use in the COVID-19 pandemic response: Changing trends in drug-involved deaths before and after stay-at-home orders in Louisiana Leonhardt, Maxwell M. Spartz, John R. Shankar, Arti Murphy, Stephen A. Front Public Health Public Health The effect of disaster events on increasing drug-involved deaths has been clearly shown in previous literature. As the COVID-19 pandemic led to stay-at-home orders throughout the United States, there was a simultaneous spike in drug-involved deaths around the country. The landscape of a preexisting epidemic of drug-involved deaths in the United States is one which is not geographically homogenous. Given this unequal distribution of mortality, state-specific analysis of changing trends in drug use and drug-involved deaths is vital to inform both care for people who use drugs and local policy. An analysis of public health surveillance data from the state of Louisiana, both before and after the initial stay-at-home order of the COVID-19 pandemic, was used to determine the effect the pandemic may have had on the drug-involved deaths within this state. Using the linear regression analysis of total drug-involved deaths, as well as drug-specific subgroups, trends were measured based on quarterly (Qly) deaths. With the initial stay-at-home order as the change point, trends measured through quarter 1 (Q1) of 2020 were compared to trends measured from quarter 2 (Q2) of 2020 through quarter 3 (Q3) of 2021. The significantly increased rate of change in Qly drug-involved deaths, synthetic opioid-involved deaths, stimulant-involved deaths, and psychostimulant-involved deaths indicates a long-term change following the initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Changes in the delivery of mental health services, harm reduction services, medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD), treatment services, withdrawal management services, addiction counseling, shelters, housing, and food supplies further limited drug-involved prevention support, all of which were exacerbated by the new stress of living in a pandemic and economic uncertainty. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-04-11 /pmc/articles/PMC10126274/ /pubmed/37113181 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1117841 Text en Copyright © 2023 Leonhardt, Spartz, Shankar and Murphy. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Public Health
Leonhardt, Maxwell M.
Spartz, John R.
Shankar, Arti
Murphy, Stephen A.
Fatal drug use in the COVID-19 pandemic response: Changing trends in drug-involved deaths before and after stay-at-home orders in Louisiana
title Fatal drug use in the COVID-19 pandemic response: Changing trends in drug-involved deaths before and after stay-at-home orders in Louisiana
title_full Fatal drug use in the COVID-19 pandemic response: Changing trends in drug-involved deaths before and after stay-at-home orders in Louisiana
title_fullStr Fatal drug use in the COVID-19 pandemic response: Changing trends in drug-involved deaths before and after stay-at-home orders in Louisiana
title_full_unstemmed Fatal drug use in the COVID-19 pandemic response: Changing trends in drug-involved deaths before and after stay-at-home orders in Louisiana
title_short Fatal drug use in the COVID-19 pandemic response: Changing trends in drug-involved deaths before and after stay-at-home orders in Louisiana
title_sort fatal drug use in the covid-19 pandemic response: changing trends in drug-involved deaths before and after stay-at-home orders in louisiana
topic Public Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10126274/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37113181
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1117841
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