By Greg Grisolano, for the ATTC Network.

Opioid overdose deaths among older Americans are roughly 11 times greater in 2019 than in 1999, according to new research published in JAMA Network Open on January 11.

The study’s authors are: Maryann Mason, PhD, Department of Emergency Medicine at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics, Northwestern University, Chicago; Rebekah Soliman, an undergraduate student at Northwestern University’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Evanston, Illinois; Howard S. Kim, MD, MS, Department of Emergency Medicine at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics, as well as the Center for Health Services and Outcomes Research at the Feinberg School and an associate editor of JAMA Network Open; and Lori Ann Post, PhD, of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Feinberg School of Medicine, Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics, Northwestern University.

The cross-sectional study found nearly 80,000 Americans aged 55 and older died of opioid overdoses in the last 21 years. Of those, 79.97% were between the ages of 55 and 64, and nearly 60% were men.

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