Trust for America’s Health, a non-partisan public health policy, research, and advocacy organization, has released a new report documenting trends in alcohol, drug, and suicide death rates in the United States.
Overall, drug overdose deaths in the United States decreased in 2023 – the most recent year with complete data. During the pandemic, drug overdoses peaked in 2020 and 2021, remained unchanged in 2022, and decreased by 4 percent in 2023. Provisional data from 2024 estimates a staggering one-year 27 percent decrease in overdose deaths in the United States. Despite this estimated improvement, overdose deaths in 2024 are still higher than pre-pandemic levels, almost twice the rate from 2010, and nearly four times the rate from 2000.
Furthermore, this recent progress in drug overdose mortality rates is not equal among racial and ethnic groups. In 2023, the only group with a statistically significant decrease in drug overdose mortality from the previous year was White Americans, experiencing a 7 percent decrease in mortality from 2022. Black Americans and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islanders experienced the only statistically significant increases, with 3 percent and 39 percent increases in overdose deaths between 2022 and 2023, respectively. For every 100,000 people, 48.9 Black Americans died from a drug overdose in 2023. This is notably higher than the overall rate of 31.3 deaths per 100,000 Americans.
For alcohol-induced deaths, the country experienced an overall, age-adjusted 7 percent decline from 2022 to 2023. All racial groups had lower rates of alcohol deaths in 2023 than in 2022. Deaths by suicide in the overall population remained virtually unchanged from 2022 to 2023, but remain higher than rates from a decade ago. According to the report, suicide rates among Black, Hispanic, and White Americans had little to no change from 2022 to 2023.
To deal with alcohol, drug, and suicide deaths in the United States, the authors offer several recommendations for federal and state policymakers. These include bolstering investment in public health and behavioral health systems; improving overdose research programs by tracking trends in demographic, geographic, and drug type metrics; focusing on the underlying drivers leading to substance abuse; maximizing harm reduction strategies and substance use disorder treatments; and investing in the mental health and substance use treatment workforce.
