London, ON, October 17, 2023 – People experiencing homelessness accounted for an increasing proportion of fatal opioid-related deaths in Ontario, Canada, reaching one in six such deaths by 2021, according to new research from ICES, Western University and Lawson Health Research Institute.
In one of the first reports to track the continuous increase in opioid-related mortality in the province among people experiencing homelessness, researchers found that the quarterly proportion of opioid-related overdose deaths among unhoused individuals increased from 7.2% (26 deaths) in the period of July to September 2017 to 16.8% (97 deaths) by April to June 2021.