US Youth Overdose Deaths Attributable To Synthetic Opioids Alone Are Increasingly Predominant, Study Finds

HealthDay (5/29, Gotkine) reports a study found that “overdose deaths attributable to synthetic opioids alone are increasingly predominant” among US youth. Researchers found that between 2018 and 2022, overdose death counts among US youth aged 15 to 24 years “increased from 4,652 to 6,723 (10.85 to 15.16 per 100,000), with a slight decrease between 2021 and 2022. Deaths involving synthetic opioids only showed the largest increases (1.8 to 4.8 deaths per 100,000).” They noted that “regardless of race, ethnicity, or sex, fatal synthetic opioid-only overdose rates were higher than polydrug overdose rates involving synthetic opioids since 2020. In 2022, rates of synthetic-only overdose deaths were 2.49- and 2.15-times higher among male versus female youth and among those aged 20 to 24 versus 15 to 19 years, respectively.” The study was published in Pediatrics.

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— “Youth Deaths Attributable to Synthetic Opioids Alone Increasingly Predominant,”Elana Gotkine, HealthDay, May 29, 2025

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