More racial minority deaths from violence, overdose amid COVID-19

American Indian/Alaska Native and Black Americans died of murder, suicide, vehicle crashes, and drug overdoses at higher rates than their White and Asian/Pacific Islander peers amid the twin threats of the opioid epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic, finds a US modeling study published yesterday in JAMA Internal Medicine.A team led by University of California researchers used monthly death data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER) database from January 2015 to February 2020 to predict excess deaths occurring from March to December 2020.High murder rate among Black AmericansIn the first 10 months of the pandemic, an estimated 17,251 (95% prediction interval [PI], 8,114 to 26,245) Americans died of murder, suicide, vehicle crashes, and drug overdoses, corresponding to 5.24 excess deaths per 100,000 people.

Most fatalities were attributed to murder, drug overdoses, and vehicle accidents.Estimated excess death rates from all external causes were highest among American Indian/Alaska Native people (17.66 per 100,000; 95% PI, 11.21 to 23.98) and Black individuals (15.41; 95% PI, 11.29 to 19.46) and lowest among Asian/Pacific Islanders (0.27; 95% PI, –0.47 to 1.00).The highest estimated excess murder rate was among Black Americans (6.7 per 100,000 people; 95% PI, 5.04 to 8.33)—more than twice the rate of the next-highest group (American Indian/Alaska Natives (3.02; 95% PI, 1.68 to 4.32).

Black Americans also had the highest estimated per-capita murder rate.Estimated suicide rates were lower than expected among White Americans (−2,643 excess deaths; 95% PI, –4,517 to –796).