Douglas Wolf, Syracuse University – COVID-19 Physical Distancing Restrictions Contributed to Increases in Drug Overdoses

Social distancing was key in reducing COVID deaths, but it came with consequences.

Douglas Wolf, professor of public administration and international affairs at Syracuse University, looks at why.

Douglas Wolf is a demographer, policy analyst, program evaluator and gerontological researcher with many years of experience studying the economic, demographic and social aspects of aging, disability and long-term care.

COVID-19 Physical Distancing Restrictions Contributed to Increases in Drug Overdoses

Drug overdose rates surged in the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic. Public health experts raised concerns that the pandemic and the social distancing measures many states imposed might increase overdose risks. 

States adopted policies to prevent the spread of COVID, such as stay-at-home orders and school closures. While these policies did reduce COVID deaths, we found that they also had the unintended effect of increasing overdose deaths among working-age adults. States scoring higher on a scale reflecting lockdown style policies had larger increases in overdose rates in 2020 than states with lower scores on this scale, after accounting for other factors.

However, at the same time that states imposed policies to reduce the spread of COVID, they also enacted policies to provide economic supports, such as increased unemployment benefits and pausing housing evictions and mortgage foreclosures. We found that states that scored higher on this economic support scale had smaller increases in overdose rates than states that provided less economic support. Unfortunately, no state adopted economic supports generous enough to offset the unintended harmful consequences of their physical distancing policies.

If the U.S. were to face another pandemic, policymakers should consider the potential negative effects of policy decisions on other population health outcomes. As is often the case, there are tradeoffs. While policies that restricted in-person interaction certainly reduced COVID mortality, they had the unintended result of increasing drug overdose deaths. While challenging, policymakers must weigh the harms as well as the benefits of public health interventions.

Read More:
[Syracuse University Libraries] – States’ COVID-19 Restrictions were Associated with Increases in Drug Overdose Deaths in 2020
[Syracuse University News] – Study: Pandemic Policies Linked to Overdose Spike