In the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic, opioid-related deaths cut the nation’s average life expectancy at birth by eight months, according to new research appearing in The Lancet Regional Health–Americas. The findings also suggest that young minorities bore the brunt of this crisis, with overdose deaths nearly doubling for Blacks, Hispanics, and American Indian/Alaska Natives in the past few years.

Fatal opioid overdoses lower U.S. life expectancy by nearly a year, study finds – Johns Hopkins Biomedical Engineering (jhu.edu)