The Number of Americans Injecting Drugs Skyrockets to Nearly 3.7 Million People in 2018, Study Finds

The opioid epidemic has led to a meteoric rise in injection drug use over the past decade, according to a study funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which experts say may also have contributed to an increase in overdoses and infectious diseases.

Researchers from the Coalition for Applied Modeling for Prevention (CAMP) used a combination of federal surveillance data and published research that calculated the rate of overdoses among people who injected drugs.

The modeling study estimated nearly 3.7 million people in the U.S. injected drugs at one point during 2018 – a fivefold increase from the most recent estimate in 2011.

“These are our family and friends and neighbors, and it’s fairly likely that we all know somebody who has injected in the past or is currently injecting,” said lead study author Dr. Heath Bradley, associate professor of epidemiology at the Georgia State University School of Public Health. “We’re hoping that getting this estimate out helps to reduce some of the stigma and otherness that others feel about this population.”

Health experts say the study could help show officials where to direct resources in the opioid epidemic, including safe injection sites, treatment strategies and prevention against infectious diseases like hepatitis C and HIV. (Read more from “The Number of Americans Injecting Drugs Skyrockets to Nearly 3.7 Million People in 2018, Study Finds” HERE)

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