Covid-19 pandemic associate with opioid overdose

Introduction/Objectives: Covid-19, which has been a global pandemic for 3 years, as exposure to fatal death, is associated with an increase in the development of both stress and mental health events. The current opioid epidemic has often been portrayed as a white problem. Opioid overdose deaths were overwhelmingly dominated by non-Hispanic white people. As the opioid crisis continues to evolve, several studies have called for attention to the spread of opioid overdoses among nonwhite populations. To explore the relationship between social isolation and opioid overdose, and age, gender, and race/ethnic variation on the relationship of social isolation and opioid overdose.

Methods: The opioid over-dose related emergency room (ER) admission records with ICD-10 code will be pulled from the EHR (The EHR database (ORACLE Cerner©). Time series analytics method was applied to analysis to data from three time periods which were categorized into three stages by control measurements during the pandemic from 2019-2022. The study measures opioid overdose using emergency department (ED) visit data. Visits are classified as heroin poisoning, non-heroin poisoning, and opioid use disorder (OUD) ED visits. Measures of opioid overdose including emergency admission (including daily count of opioid overdose in emergency admission, death of opioid overdose, and percentage of opioid overdose of emergency admission).

Results: The rates of ER visits related to opioid use significantly increased during the pandemic after Covid-19 measures were implemented, compared to the period before the pandemic (P<0.05). Opioid-related causes accounted for approximately 1 in 100 ER visits. The percentage of ER admissions due to opioid overdose also increased during the three stages of the pandemic, according to time-series analysis (P<0.05). Furthermore, health disparities across race/ethnicity were observed in ER admissions due to opioid overdose, with minorities being significantly higher compared to others.

Conclusions: Long time social distance for prevent the virus spread including shut down school and is a kind of isolation. It contributes to the opioid overdose which was the most important public health issue across the states before pandemic.