Methamphetamine-related deaths in the United States have skyrocketed by a staggering 61-fold between 1999 and 2021, according to a groundbreaking new study—underscoring a rapidly escalating crisis in addiction and public health.
Delving into the gender dynamics behind these tragic figures could be key to refining harm-reduction strategies and improving outcomes for those battling addiction, emphasized Andrew Yockey, assistant professor of public health at the University of Mississippi and co-author of the study.
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“We know that, across the board, men are more likely to use every substance except tranquilizers than women, and we found that to be true here,” Yockey said. “Especially if we’re thinking about methamphetamine, we know that women have better treatment outcomes, and we know men are less likely to seek treatment.
“So, if we really start to design interventions with this in mind, we know we’ll improve these outcomes.”
Yockey and Rachel Hoopsick, assistant professor of health and kinesiology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, published the team’s findings on gender differences amongst methamphetamine deaths in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Their goal is to influence policy and highlight the ongoing crisis of methamphetamine-related fatalities in the United States.
“There were exponential increases in methamphetamine mortality among all people ages 15 to 74 in the U.S., both male and female,” Hoopsick said. “However, the data from our study are suggesting that the sex-based differences in methamphetamine mortality may be narrowing.
“Not narrowing because we’re seeing decreases in mortality in men, but because we’re seeing accelerating mortality among women.”
While men still experience higher overall methamphetamine-related mortality rates, the number of female deaths is rising steadily. Between 1999 and 2021, male deaths involving methamphetamine increased 58.8 times, but female deaths increased even more dramatically, by 65.3 times, thus reducing the difference in total yearly deaths involving the drug.
The most significant increase occurred between 2019 and 2021, likely due to a combination of factors including the COVID-19 pandemic and the increased use of synthetic opioids among methamphetamine users, according to Yockey.
Synthetic opioids like fentanyl, carfentanil, and xylazine are easier to produce or obtain and are especially dangerous when combined with methamphetamine. Among men in the study, the proportion of deaths involving both methamphetamine and heroin or synthetic opioids surged from 13.1% to 61.5%.
“Opioid use appears to have abated in recent years, but what we’re actually seeing is the rise of synthetic opioids,” he said. “We’re starting to see basic substances like methamphetamine being adulterated with synthetic opioids.
“When we’re seeing overdoses and poisonings, the vast majority of them involve more than one of these substances.”
