A sharper picture of the opioid epidemic in Massachusetts is emerging with the release of a second comprehensive report from the Baker administration about who’s at risk, and who’s dying.
Five times as many opioid-related deaths last year as in 2000— that’s just one of the grim findings from the new report. And the state’s Department of Public Health says that number may still be an underestimate.
“Not since the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 80s and 90s has Massachusetts seen such a sharp increase in a single category of deaths,” said Dr. Monica Bharel, the commissioner of the DPH. “So, it’s really important for us to understand and to act based on this information.”
The department says it’s the only report in the nation to analyze 20 data sets from across state government.
The report also found that in 2015, nearly half of all deaths of people released from prison were opioid-related; that someone with a serious mental illness carried six times the risk of a fatal overdose; and that for anyone who’s been homeless, there was thirty times the risk of an overdose death.
Bharel says behind every data point is a person who is suffering.
“And there is hope in finding treatment,” Bharel said, “and in recovery. And we have to move beyond the stigma of opioid use and understand it for the medical disease that it is.”
Last year over 2,000 Massachusetts residents died from an opioid overdose.
