Abstract
Opioid overdose related deaths have increased dramatically in recent years. Combating the opioid epidemic requires better understanding of the epidemiology of opioid poisoning (OP). To discover trends and patterns of opioid poisoning and the demographic and regional disparities, we analyzed large scale patient visits data in New York State (NYS). Demographic, spatial, temporal and correlation analyses were performed for all OP patients extracted from the claims data in the New York Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System (SPARCS) from 2010 to 2016, along with Decennial US Census and American Community Survey zip code level data. 58,481 patients with at least one OP diagnosis and a valid NYS zip code address were included. Main outcome and measures include OP patient counts and rates per 100,000 population, patient level factors (gender, age, race and ethnicity, residential zip code), and zip code level social demographic factors. The results showed that the OP rate increased by 364.6%, and by 741.5% for the age group > 65 years. There were wide disparities among groups by race and ethnicity on rates and age distributions of OP. Heroin and non-heroin based OP rates demonstrated distinct temporal trends as well as major geospatial variation. The findings highlighted strong demographic disparity of OP patients, evolving patterns and substantial geospatial variation.
Highlights
The United States is experiencing an opioid epidemic and leading in opioid overdose deaths in the world[1,2]
With increased accessibility of health data driven by open data initiatives, largescale patient level data analysis provides an opportunity for a data-driven approach to identity patterns of the opioid epidemic and to discover potential causes of opioid-related deaths through studying diagnoses from hospital visits at large scale
The New York State (NYS) Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System (SPARCS)[18] collects patient level details on patient characteristics, diagnoses and treatments, services, and charges for each inpatient stay and outpatient visit for emergency department, ambulatory surgery, and outpatient services. It includes locations of patients. Such unprecedented access to large numbers of patient records linked with spatial data allows researchers to explore opioid poisoning in NYS with significant improvement of accuracy and coverage compared to prior studies on non-medical opioid use at a national, state or urban level[19,20]
Summary
The United States is experiencing an opioid epidemic and leading in opioid overdose deaths in the world[1,2]. Long Island, which consists of Nassau County and Suffolk County, has been identified as a region with the highest number of opioid overdose deaths in New York State (NYS)[12]. Such geospatial studies are mainly at state or county level based on OP mortalities, which lacks the spatial resolution to support community level interventions. The NYS Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System (SPARCS)[18] collects patient level details on patient characteristics, diagnoses and treatments, services, and charges for each inpatient stay and outpatient visit for emergency department, ambulatory surgery, and outpatient services It includes locations of patients (street addresses). Current state-wide opioid reports based on SPARCS are only limited to county level
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