NIH Study Finds Hospitalization Increase for Alcohol and Other Drug Overdoses
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October 21, 2011
Hospitalizations for alcohol and other drug overdoses—alone or in combination—increased among 18- to 24-year-olds between 1999 and 2008, according to a study by researchers at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Led by Aaron M. White, Ph.D., and Ralph W. Hingson, Sc.D., of NIAAA’s division of epidemiology and prevention research, the study examined hospitalization data from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample, a project of the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, designed to approximate a 20 percent sample of U.S. community hospitals.
White, Hingson, and their colleagues report that, over the 10-year study period, hospitalizations among 18- to 24-year-olds increased by 25 percent for alcohol overdoses; 56 percent for drug overdoses; and 76 percent for combined alcohol and other drug overdoses. The study also showed an increase of 122 percent in the rate of poisonings from prescription opioid pain medications and related narcotics among 18- to 24-year-olds. An alcohol overdose was present in 1 of 5 poisonings on these medications.
The findings appear in the September 2011 issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.