NYC Overdose Deaths See First Drop In 8 Years, City Says

NEW YORK — New York City's drug overdose death toll dropped in 2018 for the first time in eight years even as opioids remained a deadly force, new health figures show.

The Department of Health recorded 1,444 deaths from drug overdoses last year, 38 fewer than in 2017, according to city data released Monday. That marked the first decrease since 2010, when the city saw just 541 overdose deaths.

Opioids remain a stubborn threat despite the city's efforts to fight them, Health Department data show. They were involved in 80 percent of last year's overdose deaths, and fentanyl — a synthetic drug up to 100 times stronger than morphine — was the most common culprit for the second straight year, health officials said.

"The decrease in drug overdose deaths is promising, but far too many New Yorkers are still dying," Dr. Oxiris Barbot, the city health commissioner, said in a statement. "We are closely monitoring the trends of the epidemic as they evolve and responding to upticks in emergency department visits and deaths with targeted strategies and community engagement."

The decrease in deaths was not evenly spread across the city. Manhattan, The Bronx and Staten Island saw more fatal overdoses last year than the year before, while Brooklyn and Queens saw large drops.

The Bronx had the highest raw number of overdose deaths among the five boroughs at 391 along with the highest death rate at 34.1 per 100,000 residents, which reflected a 9 percent jump from 2017, the Health Department says.

Brooklyn, the most populous borough, had the second-most fatal overdoses with 273, a decrease of 82 from 2017, according to city figures. Queens's death count dropped by 55 to 215, while Manhattan's jumped by 42 to 267, the data show.

Staten Island recorded the fewest overdose deaths last year at 114 but the second-highest death rate at 31.5 per 100,000 residents, an 18 percent increase from 2017, health officials say.

There were also stark racial and gender disparities. The overdose death rate rose 5 percent among Latinos last year but dropped among black and white New Yorkers, the Health Department says. And the rate for women rose to 9.1 per 100,000 last year but the rate for men dropped to 33 per 100,000, according to health officials.

Fentanyl, a powerful painkiller often found mixed with other drugs, remained a driving force of fatal overdoses. It was traced to 60 percent of all overdose deaths last year, up from 56 percent in 2017, the Health Department says.

Cocaine is also a rising threat — the rate of overdose deaths tied to the drug has more than doubled since 2014 to 10.7 per 100,000 residents last year, according to the Health Department. Cocaine was traced to 52 percent of fatal overdoses in 2108, and nearly three quarters of cocaine deaths also involved an opioid, health officials say.

The Health Department touted its efforts to fight opioid deaths through HealingNYC, a more than $60 million initiative Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration launched in March 2017.

Since then, the Health Department has distributed 230,000 kits with the overdose antidote naloxone, launched an overdose intervention program in 12 emergency departments and expanded access to buprenorphine, a drug used to treat opioid addiciton, according to city officials.

"There is no one solution to the pain and tragic consequences of the opioid epidemic and New York City’s multi-faceted response reflects that," first lady Chirlane McCray said in a statement.