Opioid overdose deaths plummeted in Cook County in 2024

Lisa Schencker, Chicago Tribune on Jan 2, 2025

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The number of opioid overdose deaths in Cook County dropped dramatically in 2024, according to preliminary data released Thursday by the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Last year in Cook County, 1,026 people died from opioid overdoses — a nearly 44% drop from 2023. The medical examiner’s office expects another 200 to 300 of its pending cases will be ruled opioid overdose deaths. But even with those additional cases, the number would still be far fewer than in 2023, when 1,822 people died of opioid overdoses.

The vast majority of opioid overdose deaths last year in Cook County, about 87%, involved fentanyl, a synthetic opioid about 100 times more potent than morphine.

“Every one of these cases is an unspeakable tragedy, but it’s certainly encouraging to know we’re going in the right direction,” said Dr. Tom Nutter, chief behavioral health officer for Cook County Health.

Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Ponni Arunkumar noted that opioid overdose deaths also have been decreasing in other areas of the country and said the local decrease “speaks to the measures that Cook County Health has been instituting.”

Examples include using money from opioid legal settlements to bolster the opioid treatment program at Cook County Jail; placing vending machines with free naloxone (used to reverse opioid overdoses) at Provident and Stroger hospitals and the Ruth M. Rothstein CORE Center; and sending mobile units into the community to conduct drug testing, provide counseling and distribute naloxone, Nutter said. The Chicago Department of Public Health also has a number of programs and initiatives.

The decrease follows a national trend. The White House announced in November that drug overdose deaths had decreased nationally by about 14.5% in the year that ended in June 2024. At the time, the White House attributed the decrease to the removal of barriers to treatment; moves to make overdose-reversal medications such as naloxone more accessible and affordable; and a crackdown on illegal fentanyl at the border.

Decreases, however, can mask disparities between racial groups. When drug overdose deaths decreased nationally from 2022 to 2023, white people were the only racial group that saw a significant decrease during that time, with deaths increasing for Black and Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander people.

In Cook County, the percentage of people who died of opioid overdoses who were Black decreased in 2024, Arunkumar said, though Black people still accounted for many of the deaths. In Cook County, 53% of those who died of opioid overdoses in 2024 were Black, 31% were white and nearly 14% were Latino. The most affected age group was people 50 to 59, with 27% of the deaths.

“We still see disproportionately high rates of overdose within the Black community, Latinx community, lower socioeconomic (areas),” said John Werning, executive director of the Chicago Recovery Alliance. “It’s still the most marginalized who are dying disproportionately.”

2024 was the second consecutive year that opioid overdose deaths fell in Cook County. They decreased about 9% from 2022 to 2023.

In addition to the drop in opioid overdose deaths, the medical examiner’s office also reported declines in homicides and suicides in Cook County last year.

Continuing a trend, the number of homicides in Cook County decreased from 850 in 2023 to 773 in 2024, according to preliminary data. Homicides have been decreasing since 2022 in Cook County.

About 78% of Cook County homicides last year were in Chicago. In 72% of Cook County’s 2024 homicides, Black people were the victims, and in nearly 22% the victims were Latino people.

Suicides decreased from 508 in 2023 to 431 in 2024, according to preliminary data. Men accounted for about 80% of those deaths, and about 61% of those who died were white, 17% were Black and 16% were Latino.

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