Most people who haven’t dealt with the trauma of drug addiction firsthand (or secondhand) see it as a trenchant, simply black and white issue. Of course, it’s not. Factors such as stigma, socioeconomic status, and access to mental health services can profoundy affect a person’s ability to fight addiction. What’s been clear for ages is now more often backed by data: that Black and brown people have been disproportionately hurt by drug misuse. During the pandemic, a new study finds, our communities have experienced the highest increase in drug overdose deaths.
The JAMA Psychiatry study’s authors, who used publicly available data from the Centers for Disease Control and the National Center for Health Statistics, found that since 2015, overdose deaths have been rising most rapidly among Black and Hispanic/Latino communities, joining an already staggering drug overdose crisis among Native American communities in America.
