Disability-Adjusted Life-Years for Drug Overdose Crisis and COVID-19 Are Comparable During the Two Years of Pandemic in the United States

Jun 1, 2023, 00:00
10.1016/j.jval.2022.11.010
https://www.valueinhealthjournal.com/article/S1098-3015(22)04742-8/fulltext
Title : Disability-Adjusted Life-Years for Drug Overdose Crisis and COVID-19 Are Comparable During the Two Years of Pandemic in the United States
Citation : https://www.valueinhealthjournal.com/action/showCitFormats?pii=S1098-3015(22)04742-8&doi=10.1016/j.jval.2022.11.010
First page : 796
Section Title : BRIEF REPORT
Open access? : No
Section Order : 796

Objectives

The drug overdose crisis with shifting patterns from primarily opioid to polysubstance uses and COVID-19 infections are 2 concurrent public health crises in the United States, affecting the population of sizes in different magnitudes (approximately 10 million for substance use disorder [SUD] and drug overdoses vs 80 million for COVID-19 within 2 years of the pandemic). Our objective is to compare the relative scale of disease burden for the 2 crises within a common framework, which could help inform policy makers with resource allocation and prioritization strategies.

Methods

We calculated disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) for SUD (including opioids and stimulants) and COVID-19 infections, respectively. We collected estimates for SUD prevalence, overdose deaths, COVID-19 cases and deaths, disability weights, and life expectancy from multiple publicly available sources. We then compared age distributions of estimated DALYs.

Results

We estimated a total burden of 13.83 million DALYs for SUD and drug overdoses and 15.03 million DALYs for COVID-19 in 2 years since March 2020. COVID-19 burden was dominated by the fatal burden (> 95% of total DALYs), whereas SUD burden was attributed to both fatal (53%) and nonfatal burdens (47%). The highest disease burden was among individuals aged 30 to 39 years for SUD (27%) and 50 to 64 years for COVID-19 (31%).

Conclusions

Despite the smaller size of the affected population, SUD and drug overdoses resulted in comparable disease burden with the COVID-19 pandemic. Additional resources supporting evidence-based interventions in prevention and treatment may be warranted to ameliorate SUD and drug overdoses during both the pandemic and postpandemic recovery.

Categories :
  • Epidemiology & Public Health
  • Mental Health
  • Multiple/other specialized treatments
  • Retrospective Databases: Electronic Medical and Health Records, Admin Claims
  • Safety & Pharmacoepidemiology
  • Specialized Treatment Areas
  • Specific Diseases & Conditions
  • Study Approaches
Tags :
  • COVID-19
  • disease burden
  • drug overdose
  • population health
  • substance use disorder
Regions :
  • North America
ViH Article Tags :