The overdose death rate for Black Americans outpaced the rate for white Americans between 1999 and 2020, according to a new study published by JAMA Psychiatry.

Black men 55 and older have a higher death rate in comparison to the overall death rate for adults in the same age range, U.S. News reports. The opioid mortality rate among Black men in this age range is about four times higher than the average older adult.

Researchers noted how disparities contribute to the high rate of opioid deaths in the Black community when  illicit and synthetic drugs like fentanyl, benzodiazepines, and methamphetamine are used.

“The high — and unpredictably variable — potency of the illicit drug supply may be disproportionately harming racial and ethnic minoritized communities, with deep-seated inequalities in living conditions (including stable housing and employment, policing and arrests, preventive care, harm reduction, telehealth, medications for opioid use disorder, and naloxone access) likely playing a role,” UCLA medical scientists researchers wrote, according to JAMA Network. 

The peer-reviewed study collected information from Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Center for Health Statistics. Findings indicated that the overdose death rate for all populations in the U.S increased by 40%, Yahoo News reports

 

The report also collected data on opioid death rates by race and ethnicity between 1999 to 2020. Drug mortality in the Black population grew from 24.7 per 100,000 in 2019 to 36.8 per 100,000.

In 2020, Black people also had the second-highest overdose death rate. Alaskan Natives and American Indians had the highest rate of drug deaths, with 41.4 deaths per 100,000 people, according to Yahoo News.

Black women were also adversely affected, with overdose deaths increasing 144% between 2015 and 2020, according to the CDC.