New Mexico News: Changing Trends in Drug Overdose Death

June 1, 2009 4:00 PM

Published in the June 2009 New Mexico Board of Pharmacy News.

New Mexico had the second highest drug-induced death rate in the US in 2005 with 20.9 deaths per 100,000 persons compared to the national rate of 11.2 per 100,000. Data from the New Mexico Office of the Medical largely due to overdose from prescription drugs. The age-adjusted unintentional drug overdose death rate in New Mexico increased slightly from 17.2 per 100,000 in 2006 to 18.1 per 100,000 in 2007. There was a 20% increase in the overdose death rate from any prescription drug (from 9.5 per 100,000 in 2006 to 11.3 per 100,000 in 2007), while the death rate from any illicit drug increased 4% from 10 per 100,000 in 2006 to 10.4 per 100,000 in 2007. Multiple drug overdose deaths, (where more than one substance was found to have caused death), increased 14% from 12.2 per 100,000 in 2006 to 14 per 100,000 in 2007.
From 2003 to 2007, the median age of drug overdose decedents (n=1588) was 43.8 years. Persons who died from a combination overdose of illicit and prescription drugs were the youngest (median age of 41.7 years), while those who died from prescription drugs alone were the oldest (median age of 45). Persons who died from illicit drugs only had a median age of 42.2 years. Overdose death was also examined by the three largest racial groups/sex strata during this five-year period. Hispanic males had the highest age-adjusted overdose death rate of 31.7 per 100,000, followed by white males (20.5 per 100,000), white females (12.3 per 100,000), Hispanic females (9.3 per 100,000), American Indian males (5.8 per 100,000), and American Indian females (1.5 per 100,000).
To address this troubling trend of increasing death caused by prescription drugs, the New Mexico Department of Health, the New Mexico Board of Pharmacy, OMI, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are collaborating on a study to link drug overdose decedents with prescription data from the Prescription Monitoring Program (PMP). We aim to do the following: (1) identify factors that increase the risk of overdose death among New Mexicans who use controlled substances; (2) characterize the extent to which drug overdose victims die from prescription drugs that were obtained illegally; (3) promote the development of prevention programs and policy aimed at reducing individual and community risk; and (4) encourage more physicians to access the PMP for the purpose of patient safety and improved care coordination.