Alaska had fewer overdose deaths in 2024 than in the year prior, and state health officials are working on ways to continue to reduce that total in the future.
In all, 339 people died from drug overdoses in 2024 Alaska, a 5% decline from the record high of 357 hit the year before, according to an annual report released by the state Department of Health.
Alaska’s decline was not as dramatic as the nationwide drop in overdose deaths.
Nationally, the 2024 death total was nearly 27% lower than the total for the previous year, continuing a declining trend that followed several years of sharp increases, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Overdose deaths, as measured in total numbers, peaked in the U.S. in 2021, according to the CDC. As measured by rate per 100,000 people, they peaked in 2022.
It is not yet clear whether Alaska’s decline in fatal overdose rates will catch up to the national rates or even if the state’s decline will last, said Jessica Filley, an epidemiology specialist with the department.
“I think it’s too early to say if this trend is going to continue,” said Filley, speaking on Thursday during a break at the annual Alaska Public Health Association Summit in Anchorage.
If the trend does continue, several factors may be responsible, she said. One of those factors could be the wider use of naloxone, an overdose-reversal medicine, she said.
Distribution of the emergency medicine has increased substantially in recent years, said Tim Easterly, coordinator of a Department of Health program that provides naloxone kits to people who might be treating at-risk Alaskans.
When the program started about eight years ago, it distributed about 8,000 kits annually, Easterly said at the health summit. In the past two years, it has distributed more than 40,000 kits annually, he said. “So this program has grown. And, unfortunately, we continue to see demand, steady around that 40,000 kits per year,” he said.
Naloxone kits are provided to schools around the state under a law enacted in 2024, for example.
Filley, in a presentation at the conference, described some state efforts to try to use a more holistic approach to prevent overdose deaths.
The state’s medical examination process includes an overdose committee that gathers information not just from official documents like toxicology reports, but also from family members, healthcare providers, first responders and other people who can fill in the backstories of overdose victims.
Those reviews reveal life stories that can contain complex and interwoven challenges that preceded the overdoses. Some victims had complex mental or physical health problems that did not get addressed. Some had traumatic experiences in childhood. Housing insecurity and homelessness also emerged as a factor in some cases, she said.
Reviewing each case took hours; the committee reviewed two every quarter, or eight in the past year. Using those reviews, the committee compiled some recommendations for more comprehensive prevention and treatment.
One of the committee’s recommendations, Filley said, is for “more integrated peer support” and more coordination of case management across different settings, including healthcare facilities, treatment facilities, parole operations and interactions with first responders.
Another recommendation is for better education about trauma, including from experiences in childhood that may have long-lasting effects, she said. “We definitely have some cases where there’s evidence that the decedent experienced trauma or adversity in childhood,” she said.
The committee also recommended more education about dangers from substances other than opioids, including alcohol. While opioids have received heightened attention in recent years and are implicated in most fatalities, there are many cases where victims are abusing multiple substances simultaneously.
Statistics from the state’s annual report show that only 35% of overdose deaths between 2020 and 2024 involved a single drug. The most common combination in fatal cases over those years was a blend of synthetic narcotics like fentanyl with psychostimulants, the state report said. Examples of psychostimulants are amphetamines and cocaine.
There were twice as many fatal overdoses among men than among women in 2024, similar to ratios in the four preceding years. By region, Anchorage had the highest rate of fatal overdose per 100,000 people over all years from 2020 to 2024, according to the state report. In 2024, Anchorage had about two thirds of the state’s overdose deaths, even though it has about 40% of the state’s residents.
