Opioid overdoses among homeless people rose dramatically: Ontario study

published on October 17, 2023 by Nicole Ireland in Winnipeg Free Press

Opioid overdoses are killing a growing proportion of people experiencing homelessness in Ontario, a new study suggested Tuesday.

Researchers from the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences found about one in six people who died from opioid overdoses in 2021 were homeless, compared to one in 14 people back in 2017.

“(It’s) something that even shocked us as researchers when we first derived some of these numbers,” said Richard Booth, lead author of the study that was published in the journal Addiction.

“That is a massive increase, you know, spanning the pandemic where accidental opioid-related overdoses became a much more significant element in the lives of people experiencing homelessness,” said Booth, an associate professor of nursing at Western University in London, Ont.

The researchers examined coroner’s data and health records for 6,644 people who died from opioid overdose deaths in the province between July 2017 and June 2021…