VANCOUVER - The first snapshots from a project aimed at giving a better picture of those at greatest risk of opioid abuse reveals that an average of nearly 10 Canadians died each day from illicit drug overdoses between 2016 and 2018.
The figure comes from what will be a series of articles examining the social and economic backgrounds of overdose victims in British Columbia, where the Public Health Agency of Canada says the overdose crisis is most acute.
The data shows victims range from employed people who have never had contact with the justice, social assistance or hospital systems to those with little work history and long-term legal and social issues.
BC Coroners Service numbers included in the study reveal overdoses leaped from 293 in 2011 to 639 by 2016 and nearly three-quarters of those deaths involved men between 25 and 54.
Of those at risk, the study shows roughly one-quarter were hospitalized in the year before their deaths, more than 40 per cent visited an emergency room at least once in that time, and three-quarters of those who had contact with police for an alleged crime died within a year of that interaction.
The data is from the Opioid Project, a partnership between numerous agencies including Statistics Canada, the B.C. Ministry of Health, BC Coroners Service and several departments within the City of Surrey, including its RCMP detachment and fire department.
