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CDC: Expanded Telehealth Amid Pandemic Decreased Overdoses

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said expanded telehealth services during the COVID-19 pandemic effectively reached people struggling with opioid use and contributed to lowering fatal drug overdoses.

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(TNS) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said expanded telehealth services during the COVID-19 pandemic effectively reached people struggling with opioid use and contributed to lowering fatal drug overdoses.

The study, published in JAMA Psychiatry, tracked two cohorts of medicare beneficiaries — one using data from before the onset of the pandemic from September 2018 to February 2020, and another from September 2019 to February 2021 — to ascertain the strength of receiving telehealth services and medications for opioid use disorder.

More than 170,000 people were included in the study, which was a collaborative effort between researchers from the CDC, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the National Institutes of Health. It found those who began opioid use care during the pandemic had a 33% lower risk of a fatal drug overdose, underscoring the importance of expanding telehealth services, experts said.

"At a time when more than 100,000 Americans are now dying annually from a drug overdose, the need to expand equitable access to lifesaving treatment, including medications for opioid use disorder, has never been greater," Dr. Wilson Compton, deputy director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and senior author of the study, said in a release.

People who received medications for opioid use disorder from treatment programs and others who received buprenorphine — one of the medications to treat opioid use — in office-based settings experienced 59% and 38% reduced odds, respectively, to suffer a fatal overdose, the study said.

Mortality rates overall were higher in the cohort of pandemic medicare beneficiaries; however, the increase was consistent with national trends showing overdoses rose starkly between 2019 and 2020, according to the CDC.

Overdose deaths surged in New York City in the first year of the pandemic, and national overdoses have reached the highest level ever recorded.

"The results of this study add to the growing research documenting the benefits of expanding the use of telehealth services for people with opioid use disorder, as well as the need to improve retention and access to medication treatment for opioid use disorder," lead author Dr. Christopher Jones, director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, said in the release.

The dispersal of overdoses in the United States has not struck all groups equally. The rate of drug overdose deaths for older adults has increased more than threefold over the past two decades, the CDC previously reported. Fentanyl, which can be fatal in extremely small doses, had an outsized impact on overdose deaths among this group.

Racial disparities also persist, experts said. Hispanic Black men had higher drug overdose death rates compared to Hispanic men and non-Hispanic white men in recent decades.

Overdoses doubled on Staten Island during the first months of the pandemic, bolstered by an influx of fentanyl. The outbreak's effect on mental health, socioeconomic status and isolation left experts concerned that individuals in recovery and those struggling from substance misuse would face severe struggles.

Last year, New York City announced expansive investments to address a rise in overdose deaths.

Despite the study showcasing positive effects of opioid use disorder-related telehealth programs, the researchers said only 20% of medicare beneficiaries received related services. Similarly, only one in eight study participants received medications for opioid use disorder.

"This study shows that many beneficiaries were able to utilize opioid use disorder-related telehealth services during the pandemic, but we need to continue our efforts to broaden the use of telehealth, particularly in underserved communities," said senior author Dr. Shari Ling, deputy chief medical officer at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

© 2023 Staten Island Advance, N.Y. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.