ArticleCMAJ open
Hot weather and death related to acute cocaine, opioid and amphetamine toxicity in British Columbia, Canada: a time-stratified case-crossover study.
Article in CMAJ open. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 7 citations in OpenAlex.
- Socioenvironmental disasters and the dialectics of overdose mortality.The International journal on drug policy · 2026Article
- Association of short-term ambient environmental exposures with suicide and drug overdose deaths among U.S. veterans.American journal of epidemiology · 2026Article
- Heat exposure and drug overdose mortality in the USA.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2026Observational
- Spatial analysis of county-level determinants of overdose mortality in the United States using spatial machine learning.BMC public health · 2025Article
- The association between hot days and substance-related suicides: a time-stratified case-crossover analysis in British Columbia, Canada.Environmental health : a global access science source · 2025Article
- Occupational Heat Exposure & Mental Health Outcomes: A Review and Framework Incorporating Social Determinants of Health to Guide Future Research.Current environmental health reports · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPrevious research has shown that cocaine-associated deaths occur more frequently in hot weather, which has not been described for other illicit drugs or combinations of drugs. The study objective was to evaluate the relation between temperature and risk of death related to cocaine, opioids and amphetamines in British Columbia, Canada.
methodsWe extracted data on all deaths with cocaine, opioid or amphetamine toxicity recorded as an underlying or contributing cause from BC vital statistics for 1998-2017. We used a time-stratified case-crossover design to estimate the effect of temperature on the risk of death associated with acute drug toxicity during the warmer months (May through September). Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated for each 10°C increase in the 2-day average maximum temperature at the residential location.
resultsWe included 4913 deaths in the analyses. A 10°C increase in the 2-day average maximum temperature was associated with an OR of 1.43 (95% CI 1.11-1.86) for deaths with only cocaine toxicity recorded (
interpretationIncreasing temperatures were associated with higher odds of death due to drug toxicity, especially for cocaine alone and combined with other drugs. Targeted interventions are necessary to prevent death associated with toxic drug use during hot weather.
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