Opioid Deaths Have Surged Among Older Black Men

March 11, 2022

Opioid overdose deaths among older adults in the U.S. have grown fastest among Black men, a new study shows, offering more evidence that a deadly drug crisis once seen as mostly affecting whites has been disproportionately harming people of color.

The research, published Tuesday in JAMA Network Open, found the annual rate of opioid overdose deaths increased approximately tenfold among adults 55 years of age and older, from 0.9 deaths per 100,000 population in 1999 to 10.7 per 100,000 in 2019. Over those two decades, nearly 80,000 U.S. residents 55 or older died due to an opioid overdose, with nearly 80% of those deaths occurring among those between the ages of 55 and 64 and more than 58% occurring among men, the study found.

Driving the overall increase has been a spike in overdose deaths among Black men, who since 2013 have had substantially higher death rates than the overall rate for people at least 55 years old. By 2019, the opioid overdose fatality rate among older Black men was approximately four times higher than the overall rate among older adults, at more than 40 deaths per 100,000 population.

The increase in opioid overdose deaths among older Black men is the latest evidence of the U.S. drug epidemic’s changing demographics. Notably, the early years of the opioid epidemic were fueled heavily by prescription pain medications, which white patients at least initially were more likely to receive than Black patients. Yet the racial divide has narrowed in recent years, with the opioid overdose death rate among Black individuals reaching 17.1 per 100,000 in 2019 compared with 19 per 100,000 among whites, the KFF figures show.

While Mason says the prevalence of fentanyl might be a factor in the increase in overdose deaths among older Black adults, she notes that Black patients are less likely to have health insurance, and her study cites separate research showing higher receipt of buprenorphine – a key medication used to treat opioid use disorder – among white patients than others.

“All of these things sort of coalesce to put Black people at a continued disadvantage,” Mason says.

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