Rhode Island health officials report drug overdose deaths last year declined about 4 percent, the first significant decline in nearly a decade.
The final count, released Monday, showed the decline was not as significant as early reporting suggested. And the decline in opioid-related overdose deaths last year was even smaller – 1.4 percent – state data shows.
“We know that it’s a slight decrease and we know that there’s much more that we need to do,’’ said the state’s health director, Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott. “But it’s encouraging, certainly, that it’s going in the right direction.
Vermont reported a 6 percent decline in overdose deaths in 2017. Massachusetts’ health officials said last February that preliminary data showed overdose deaths related to opioids in 2017 fell 8.3 percent.
In Rhode Island, 323 people died of accidental drug overdoses, down from 336 deaths in 2016. The number of opioid-related overdoses last year dipped to 281 deaths, compared with 285 in 2016, state health data shows.
Rhode Island has expanded medication-assisted treatment in the state prison; increased access to naloxone, an opioid-overdose antidote, among state and local police departments and established statewide standards for hospitals and emergency departments for preventing and treating opioid overdoses. And the state has expanded use of recovery coaches — mostly people in recovery from opioid addiction — in hospital emergency departments.
Meanwhile, the number of fatal overdoses linked to the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl rose 5 percent.
And more women and African Americans are dying. Fatal overdoses in 2017 were up 15 percent among women. And among African Americans fatal overdoses more than doubled.
State health officials say they aren’t sure why. But one factor could be prescribing patterns. Nearly 60 percent of all prescription painkillers, sedatives and antidepressants were written for women ages 15 to 44.
updated 2:06 p.m.
