New Haven, CONN — The number of children dying from opioid poisonings has nearly tripled in the last decade.
According to researchers at Yale University, 9,000 pediatric deaths between 1999 and 2016 were due to opioids. A majority of the cases were accidents, and many of them happened at home.
In those cases, methadone was associated with 36 percent of the children’s deaths. Stemming from parents or other adults in the child’s life using methadone to manage pain or addiction.
Among teenagers, heroin was the cause of death for 24 percent of those aged 15 to 19 years old. During the years 2014 through 2016, synthetic opioids was the cause of nearly a third of all prescription and illegal opioid deaths among older teens.
Researchers say the epidemic won’t get any better, until public health officials take action. According to the Center of Disease Control(CDC), more than 70,000 people died of a drug overdose last year alone, most of them from opioids.
