Trust for America’s Health and Well Being Trust released their latest report in the Pain in the Nation series, finding that the pandemic exacerbated an already tragic behavioral health crisis. The U.S. experienced the highest ever combined rates of deaths due to alcohol, drugs, and suicide during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Drug overdose deaths have also exploded from less than 20,000 in the year 2000 to 96,000 in 2020.
The report found that deaths spanned ages, racial and ethnic groups, and geography but disproportionally harmed young people and people of color.
