Here’s why Florida knows more about its drug-overdose deaths than the feds
Though a surge of opioid-related deaths has been in the public spotlight for years, the federal government’s data on fatal overdoses could be undercounting the actual cost of the epidemic’s devastation in Florida and obscuring the role that other substances have played in contributing to the spike, according to a new study.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — which tracks overdose-related deaths to inform policy debates and academic research — may be missing thousands of deaths for a variety of drugs, including cocaine and opioids, in Florida, according to the study, authored by Troy Quast, associate professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa.
Florida keeps more detailed data on its overdose-related deaths than other states by obtaining the numbers from medical examiners. But Quast said the gaps between the data collected by Florida medical examiners and the federal government’s data illustrate the need for a more accurate accounting that would help illuminate new trends for public health experts — for instance, the role of fentanyl and cocaine in overdose deaths.
“Having inaccurate reporting makes policy makers and healthcare providers unaware of what’s happening on the street,” Quast said. “Opioids have gotten a great deal of press, and deservedly so, but even the number of deaths due to cocaine are quite significantly undercounted.”
Quast compared numbers kept by the CDC with those kept by Florida’s medical examiners. He found that, between 2003 and 2017, medical examiners recorded about 8,633 more opioid-related deaths and 3,350 more cocaine-related deaths than the federal government had tracked in that 15-year span.
A spokesperson for the CDC did not respond to the Herald’s questions about the study’s findings.
Depending on the drug, the numbers of deaths noted in the state medical examiner data ranged from 19% to 39% higher than the same counts in the federal data, according to the study.
Quast said that the CDC is making strides towards correcting the gaps in its data on drug overdose deaths, but the picture remains incomplete at the federal level.
“Fortunately, in Florida, we have a clearer picture,” Quast said. “Other states are not so lucky.”
Sheila Vakharia, an academic research expert with the nonprofit Drug Policy Alliance — which advocates for drug policy reforms — said the Florida data collected by medical examiners highlights an often-overlooked fact: that cocaine is playing an important role in overdose deaths, especially on the U.S. east coast.
“Here is more evidence that we’re in the midst of an overdose crisis and not just an opioid one,” she said. “But it does appear that, in the state of Florida, opioids continue to drive [the increase in deaths].”
Quast said Florida collects more data than most states, but Kentucky has also developed a new system to improve its own data collection.
On the federal level, overdose-death-related data has drawn attention from the Trump administration. .
In September last year, the administration announced more than $900 million in funding for states to “continue combating the opioid crisis,” with an emphasis on improving the quality of their data on drug overdose deaths.
Three Florida agencies received significant funding as part of the initiative: $4 million for the Palm Beach County Department of Health, $4.4 million for the Duval County Department of Health and $7.6 million for the state Department of Health.
This story was originally published January 8, 2020 at 7:00 AM.
