BY PAIGE WEBBSTOCK
AMERICAN ADDICTIONS CENTER
Tennesseans each lose 2.2 years of their lives to drug and alcohol abuse, according to study done by the World Health Organization.
The study noted that Tennessee has had an increase of 4.9% in healthy years lost to drug abuse. On average, men have lost more years of their lives than women.
The United States has suffered with an opioid epidemic for over two decades, resulting in shocking statistics that are exacerbated with each passing year — there seems to be no end in sight, despite the DEA’s best efforts to fight drug abuse.
The World Health Organization calculates the impact of disease on life according to Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), which are the number of years lost and years lived with a disability. One DALY is the equivalent of one lost year of healthy human life. For example, in the U.S., for every 100,000 people, an unfortunate average of 1,178 years of healthy life are lost due to the substance abuse epidemic.
One of the most worrying statistics to emerge from the DALYs data was that overall in America, people lose on average 1.7 years of their life span because of drug and alcohol abuse.
Broken down by state, American Addiction Centers analyzed DALY data, and found that statistically, Tennesseans each lose 2.2 years of healthy life due to drugs and alcohol abuse. West Virginia was the state with the highest number of years lost per resident — an alarming 3.4 years — whilst Nebraska had the lowest value by comparison.
From 1990 to 2017, the total average number of healthy years lost to drug disorders in the U.S. increased exponentially over the years. In 1990, it was 1.5 million but the introduction of the drug, OxyContin, in 1996 fueled the drug-fire in the country. By 2010, Americans had lost almost 3.5 million years of healthy life. This value spiked tremendously in the following half decade and by 2017, the United States had lost 5.5 million years of healthy life due to drugs.
The study also found a consistent factor in the data: since the beginning of 1990, men have lost more years of their lives than their female counterparts. In 2017 alone, men lost 3.4 million years of healthy life, whilst women lost around 2 million years.
It is perturbing to find that from 2016 to 2017, each state’s number of healthy years lost increased by at least 1%. It was discovered that Tennessee had a 4.9% increase — above the country’s 4.5% average. Montana, by comparison had the highest percentage change in the U.S. at 10.1%, whilst Massachusetts had the smallest at just 0.8%.
Broken down by categories of substance in 2017 alone, Tennesseans lost:
— 100,368 healthy years to general opioid use disorders.
— 8,230 years to cocaine
— 4,243 years to amphetamines
Ruchi Dhami, Director of Brand & Design, who oversees American Addiction Centers’ research says: “These statistics are really quite shocking and show how much can be lost to drug and substance abuse. Addiction doesn’t have to be fought alone. There are treatment centers all over the country to help individuals recover and regain a sober, happy, healthy life.”