More working-age Ohioans between the ages of 15 and 64 are dying now than just 15 years ago, according to an analysis by the Health Policy Institute of Ohio.
The organization found that in most other states, people live longer.
“Our premature death rate and our life expectancy at birth rate were worse than many other states,” said Hailey Akah, the organization’s vice president of operations and strategy. “So we decided to dig in a little bit deeper to those working-age Ohioans to see what exactly is causing those trends to go in the wrong direction.”
COVID-19 caused deaths among working-age Ohioans to spike in 2020 and 2021. But the institute’s analysis found the trend toward early death started more than a decade before the pandemic, and was influenced by a range of factors, from drug overdoses to alcohol overuse.
What factors are driving Ohio’s early death trend?
Researchers looked at the 10 leading causes of death among working-age Ohioans to figure out the main factors driving the trend toward early death. Then, they calculated the percent change in those deaths over the past 15 years.
“So from 2007 to 2022, how had those leading causes of death increased or changed?” Akah said.
Increases in unintentional injuries, including overdose deaths, led the way. Ohio has one of the highest drug overdose death rates in the country, ranking 47th out of 50 states and Washington D.C., according to the Health Policy Institute of Ohio. The number of working-age Ohioans who died from drug overdoses more than doubled between 2007 and 2022, researchers found.
Deaths by chronic liver disease and cirrhosis also increased substantially over the 15-year span — by 72%.
“That’s attributed to alcohol overuse,” Akah said.
Liquor sales in Ohio nearly doubled over the past two decades, according to the report, and Ohioans drink more excessively than people in other states, which can lead to liver problems.
“Unlike a drug overdose death, which is immediate, an alcohol overuse-related death is normally decades in the making,” Akah said. “What we see when we look at policy activity around alcohol is a lot of activity to increase and make it more accessible, like DORA [Designated Outdoor Refreshment Areas] policies and alcoholic ice cream. But it really is important to balance that with the public health concern that we rightfully have as we see these deaths increase.”
Homicides and suicides also increased from 2007 to 2022, which Akah attributes partly to an increase in community violence and access to firearms.
And chronic lower respiratory diseases, linked to tobacco use, rose as well. More Ohio adults and youth smoke than in most other states, the report says.
The only leading cause of death among working-age Ohioans to decrease since 2007 was cancer.
“We pay a lot of policy and research attention to that issue,” Akah said. “So that's a place of a lot of concerted efforts.”
Will the trend toward early death continue?
More recent death data isn’t available yet.
“We'll have to keep waiting as the data comes out to see how the trend moves,” Akah said.
She’s seen some indications that the homicide rate is declining, and that overdose deaths are dropping.
“So, hopefully we see that trend continue to improve,” she said.
But in the meantime, the Health Policy Institute of Ohio came up with a list of policy recommendations Akah said could help.
Those include:
- Increasing access to naloxone and fentanyl testing strips
- Restricting marketing of flavored tobacco products to kids
- Implementing community-based violence prevention programs
“It's also important for us to remember that not all Ohioans are experiencing this burden equally,” Akah said, “that there are groups of Ohioans — Black Ohioans, low-income Ohioans, other groups — that are shouldering more of the burden of these upstream drivers.
“So whichever policies we implement, we need to make sure that we're authentically engaging communities, getting input and buy-in and that we're assessing the impact of whatever we implement to know that it's moving in the right direction.”
