Catherine Rusoff
More than 320,000 children in the United States lost a parent to a drug overdose between 2011 and 2021, a study by National Institute on Drug Abuse found.
No national study has previously looked at the number of children affected by the overdose crisis, according to a study press release announcing the findings. Study co-author Dr. Emily Einstein, head of NIDA’s Department of Science Policy, said the study was inspired by similar research during the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the decade studied, 649,599 people aged 18 to 64 died from drug overdoses. Children were more likely to lose their fathers than their mothers, the study found.
“Something that is very important about this particular data set is that it portrays people who use drugs as people who have full lives,” Einstein said. “I think we often think of people who are addicted or who use drugs as that being their defining characteristic, especially when someone dies from an overdose… Almost half of those people who die have a child who lives in their home. This gives us hard data so we can begin to understand the full picture of someone’s entire life and how we need to address all factors in their life, both for their own addiction and to mitigate the trauma experienced by the children left behind.”
While the “largest number of affected children were those with non-Hispanic white parents,” the study found that children in “communities of color and tribal communities were disproportionately affected,” according to the press release. Children with non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native parents have consistently experienced the loss of a parent to overdose, with 187 out of every 100,000 children in this group affected. This represents more than double the rate among white and black children, who were affected at a rate of 76.5 per 100,000 children and 73 per 100,000 children, respectively, the study found.
The rate of children whose parents died from drug overdoses “more than doubled” during the 10-year period studied, according to the news release. The increase was seen across all racial and ethnic populations, the study found, but children with young black and non-Hispanic parents saw the largest increase in the rate of loss each year, with about a 24% annual increase in deaths from overdose.
Einstein said the rising numbers show the overdose crisis is an “emergency of the highest order.”
“It’s important to keep in mind that children who live in homes where their parents use drugs are very likely to have environmental risk factors and probably biological risk factors that can increase their own likelihood of using drugs,” Einstein said. “And then if you include this traumatic event of losing a parent to an overdose, that means these children are extraordinarily vulnerable.”
Susan Ousterman, a Pennsylvania woman who runs support groups for parents who have lost children to overdoses, said she often sees grandparents raising grandchildren while parents struggle with substance use or die from overdoses. Ousterman said she hopes the study highlights the need to talk to children about substance use and addiction without stigmatizing people who use drugs.
“There’s just not enough support for kids,” she said.
The study called for a greater focus on whole-person health care that treats substance use disorder and on prevention resources that can be used to support families. Einstein said children who lose parents to overdoses need to have access to “the support and psychiatric care they need as they grow up.”
“It’s important for us to realize that substance use and addiction affect entire family units,” Einstein said, noting that parents who use drugs may feel more ashamed about disclosing their substance use or seeking treatment. “As we think about better ways to improve people’s receipt of care, we need to think about the entire family unit and everyone it impacts.”
