Editor's Note: Below is an excerpt from an institutional research note written earlier this month by Hedgeye Demography Sector Head Neil Howe. To read this entire note email sales@hedgeye.com.
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TREND WATCH: What’s Happening? U.S. drug overdose rates are hitting new highs as opioid addiction ravages communities around the country. The annual death toll of drug overdoses now exceeds that of car crashes, guns, and previous health scares. Public health officials are desperately seeking ways to stem the tide before it gets even worse. Our Take: Though the addictions and deaths span all age brackets, it’s Boomers and Xers who are pushing up overdose rates the most—a divergence from typical demographic patterns and a reflection of a risk-taking ethos that has followed these generations into midlife and beyond. While early efforts to combat rising overdose rates are promising, regulators and public officials still have a long way to go. |
ANATOMY OF A CRISIS
The numbers are staggering. In 2015, more than 52,000 Americans died of drug overdoses, according to the latest data from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly two-thirds of these deaths (approximately 33,000) were linked to opioids such as OxyContin, Vicodin, heroin, and fentanyl, a figure that has quadrupled since 1999 and is now the highest on record. This figure equates to 91 opioid deaths each day.
Astonishingly, since 2011, the increase in opioid overdose deaths (+10,307) has accounted for virtually the entire increase in all overdose deaths (+11,064).
HOW THE OPIOID EPIDEMIC IS DIFFERENT
As the number of opioid fatalities has shot up, the public face of drug addiction has shifted.
- RACE: Whites hit hardest. In contrast to past drug epidemics, which devastated communities of color, opioids are killing white Americans at double to triple the rates of their black and Hispanic peers. The overdose death rate for whites has shot up more than threefold since 1999 (to 21.1 deaths per 100,000). The problem is most acute in rural areas, but transcends socioeconomic class and income level.
- AGE: Middle age hit hardest. Race is hardly the only thing different about today’s drug epidemic. The age profile of victims has shifted as well. In a historical list of drug-related celebrity deaths compiled by drugs.com, the average age of death in the 1960s and 70s was 35. Over the last five years (since 2013), it has been 49.
- GEOGRAPHY: American heartland hit hardest. The geography of the crisis has changed over time as well. Many victims come from overwhelmingly white areas in states like Ohio, Rhode Island, West Virginia, Kentucky, and New Hampshire.
DRIVERS
What factors are behind this startling surge in overdose deaths?
A lagging economy. Many commentators link the opioid epidemic to economic difficulties that have sunk the career prospects of the white working class. Princeton economist Anne Case, for example, recently suggested in The Washington Post that struggling Americans are self-medicating “to soothe the beast” brought on by stress and poor health. Research by another Princeton economist, Alan Krueger, found that 44% of prime working-age male labor force dropouts—roughly 7 million men—take pain medication on a daily basis, and in two-thirds of cases, they take prescription drugs. These men also report lower levels of emotional well-being than their employed counterparts.
But this theory is incomplete. Ours is far from the only nation experiencing economic trauma—yet no other country is afflicted by an opioid epidemic. We consume an astonishing 80% of the world’s supply and 99% of the hydrocodone supply, according to the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians. The United States is the worldwide leader in narcotics consumption—and it isn’t even close.
