. In 2020, more than 5,000 adults 65 and older in the United States died of a drug overdose.
Although Kramarow and her colleagues did not analyze what factors could be driving these increases, she said that “it’s not unreasonable to think that the forces affecting younger people also affect people 65 and older.” The report on alcohol-induced deaths, based on CDC data, found that although they make up less than 1% of all deaths among adults 65 and older, the death rates increased between 2019 and 2020, climbing from 17 to 20.1 deaths per 100,000 people.
Excessive drinking can have more severe consequences for the body in older age than for younger adults, leading to a higher risk of death, said Peter Hendricks, a professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health Department of Health Behavior. A separate report released Wednesday by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics found that death rates from unintentional falls also have increased between 2000 and 2020 among adults 65 and older.Although the new reports from the National Center for Health Statistics were based on annual data, Hendricks said that there are very likely seasonal trends.