Drug overdoses and suicides have been rising since 2000 and are major contributors to a recent decline in US life expectancy. The opioid crisis is largely to blame, with a record 47,600 overdose deaths in 2017.[1] Suicide rates in 2016 have increased 30% from 1999.[2] Case and Deaton have called these “deaths of despair.”[3]
In the study, “Suicide and drug‐related mortality following occupational injury,” published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, researchers found that workplace injury significantly raises a person’s risk of suicide or overdose death. Earlier studies have shown that injured workers have elevated rates opioid use and depression. In fact, depression is among the most well-documented health consequences of workplace injury.[4][5][6] However, no studies have measured increased deaths related to opioid use and depression among injured workers.