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Naloxone Access Disparity Plaguing Rural Areas
Individuals who received a dose of naloxone were at least 9 times as likely to survive an opioid overdose as individuals who did not receive naloxone, but a lack of availability of the overdose-reversal medication has led to an increase in deaths in rural areas, according to a recent study by researchers from Penn State University.
Findings were reported in the Journal of Drug and Alcohol Dependence.
The study was based on data from the Pennsylvania Overdose Information Network from 2018 to 2020 and the American Community Survey from 2015 to 2019. Overall, naloxone was administered in 75% of cases in which an individual experiencing an opioid overdose survived. Naloxone was administered in 29% of fatal overdose cases.
Despite its demonstrated efficacy in reversing opioid overdoses, the availability of naloxone at the time of overdose ranged between 41% to 47% in the lowest ranked counties, most of which were rural. Meanwhile, Philadelphia County, the most populous county in Pennsylvania, had a 92% naloxone availability rate.
“One of the main goals of this research is to inform public health practitioners and policymakers who have the capacity to do something about the distribution of naloxone, which is clearly effective,” study lead author Louisa Holmes, assistant professor of geography at Penn State and member of Penn State Social Science Research Institute’s Consortium on Substance Use and Addiction, said in a news release. “It gives leaders a target for combating the opioid epidemic by saving lives.”
The state of Pennsylvania issued standing orders in 2015 and 2022 authorizing any individual to obtain naloxone, although the decision to stock the medication is left up to pharmacists. A separate survey, published in the Journal of Addiction Medicine, found that 55% of pharmacies in the state do not stock naloxone and a majority are unclear on policies related to the standing order.
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