ReviewThe International journal on drug policy2021
Pathways between COVID-19 public health responses and increasing overdose risks: A rapid review and conceptual framework.
Review in The International journal on drug policy, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT07466784 (Optimizing Outcomes for Patients Presenting to Emergency Departments With Opioid Poisoning), which is not on this map. Cited by 51 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Optimizing Outcomes for Patients Presenting to Emergency Departments With Opioid Poisoning
Who cites it
51 citing papers in PubMed.
- "I Know So Many Women That Have the Same Story as Mine": Exploring How the Increase of Benzodiazepines in the Unregulated Drug Supply Shapes Experiences of Gender-Based Violence Among Women and Gender Minorities in Vancouver, BC.Contemporary drug problems · 2026Article
- Changing trends in drug overdose mortality in Spain, 2001-2022.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2026Observational
- Implementation evaluation of a Massachusetts pilot program designed to reduce overdose deaths among Black and Latino men returning from incarceration.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Post-overdose outreach programs in Massachusetts before and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.Journal of substance use and addiction treatment · 2025Article
- Association of route of drug administration with self-reported non-fatal overdose: A cohort study of Baltimore City adults who have injected drugs.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2025Article
- The effect of lifting eviction moratoria on fatal drug overdoses in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.American journal of epidemiology · 2025Article
- The relationship between COVID-19 and opioid-related emergency department visits in Alberta, Canada: an interrupted time series analysis.Health promotion and chronic disease prevention in Canada : research, policy and practice · 2025Article
- Emergency Department Visits, Inpatient Hospitalizations, and Nonfatal and Fatal Drug Overdoses During COVID-19 Among Veterans With Opioid Use Disorder.Journal of studies on alcohol and drugs · 2025Article
- Decline in US Drug Overdose Deaths by Region, Substance, and Demographics.JAMA network open · 2025Article
- Drug treatment and support service utilization amidst the COVID-19 pandemic among people who inject drugs in Baltimore, Maryland: An interrupted time-series analysis, 2015-2022.The International journal on drug policy · 2025Article
- 'It just doesn't stop': Perspectives of women who use drugs on increased overdoses during the COVID-19 pandemic.Drug and alcohol review · 2025Article
- Navigating the COVID-19 Risk Environment, Overdose Prevention, and Self Care Practices of People Who Use Illicit Opioids in New York City.Substance use & misuse · 2025Article
- Impact of guidance issued during COVID-19 to expand take-home doses of opioid agonist treatment (OAT) in Ireland: protocol for a population-based analysis of prescribing practices and patient outcomes 2018 to 2023.HRB open research · 2025Article
- Circumstances surrounding opioid toxicity deaths within shelters in Ontario, Canada, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: a population-based descriptive cross-sectional study.BMJ public health · 2025Article
- An evidence-based digital prescription opioid safety toolkit for national dissemination: co-design and user testing.Frontiers in digital health · 2025Article
- Initiation and/or re-initiation of drug use among people who use drugs in Vancouver, Canada from 2021 to 2022: a prospective cohort study.Substance abuse treatment, prevention, and policy · 2024Article
- Spatial co-occurrence of firearm homicides and opioid overdose deaths in Chicago by level of COVID-19 mortality, 2017-2021.Injury epidemiology · 2024Article
- Volatile drug use and overdose during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.The International journal on drug policy · 2024Article
- Cardiac Arrest Following Drug Overdose in the United States: An Analysis of the Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival.Journal of the American Heart Association · 2024Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundEmerging evidence indicates that illicit drug overdoses are increasing throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. There is a paucity of evidence on the causative pathways for this trend, but expert opinions, commentaries, and some reviews offer theoretical underpinnings.
methodsIn this rapid review, we collate the available published evidence, expert opinions, commentaries, and reviews on the unintended pathways between COVID-19 public health responses and increasing illicit drug overdoses. Using tenets of thematic analyses and grounded theory, we also offer a visual conceptual framework for these unintended pathways.
resultsOur framework focuses on five particular public health responses, namely social isolation/physical distancing/quarantine; staff/resource reallocations and reductions; closures of businesses and other places of employment; border closures and transportation restrictions; and the early release of people from prisons. As argued in the literature reviewed here, these public health responses have unintentionally created increased overdose risks by producing high risk use scenarios; increased risks of relapsing; disrupted addictions services and treatment; an increasingly toxic supply of drugs; and the risk of using with lowered tolerance.
conclusionsHealth care systems should respond to these pathways to mitigate the unintended consequences. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic may represent an opportunity to enact proactive, progressive, and innovative solutions to an overdose crisis that will surely outlast the current pandemic.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.