05/09/2024

More than 320,000 American Children Lost a Parent in a Decade of Drug Overdoses

The data was shared in a recent JAMA Psychiatry publication

More than 320,000 children across the United States lost a parent due to a drug overdose between 2011 and 2021. That's according to a new study published in JAMA Psychiatry Wednesday.

"It's a call to arms to pay close attention to the consequences of a parent who dies due to a drug overdose," said Harvard neuroscientist Charles Nelson, III, who wasn't involved in the new study.

The impact of the country's overdose epidemic on children is something "we really don't speak much about," said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and an author of the new study.

Please select this link to read the complete article from NPR.