Drug overdose deaths in the U.S. have been declining for the past two years. But now, a project led by Northwestern researchers has found that progress is starting to slow.
Funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Overdose Death Pulse released a monitor in January that tracks, graphs and analyzes overdoses in the U.S. to help policymakers and providers protect at-risk communities from prevalent drugs. OD Pulse tracks overdoses by region, demographic, drug type, intent and drug combination.
Feinberg Prof. Lori Post, the project’s principal investigator, said the overdose death rate alone fails to show the full picture.
“It just tells us what happened,” Post said. “It doesn’t tell us where we’re going, and it doesn’t explain regional variation.”
Although overdoses are still declining on the whole, the most recent OD Pulse report from February indicates that western and southwestern states are experiencing more overdose deaths than in previous months. In the East, Northeast and Midwest, the overdose decline is starting to plateau. Since September, 14 states have seen increases in drug overdoses.
Using detailed data for policies has the potential to prevent deaths, University of Maryland Prof. Jay Unick, a co-investigator on the NIH grant, said.
“One of the things that is true for me throughout the course of this epidemic is the degree to which good data can save actual lives,” Unick said. “Whether that’s something like naloxone distribution to the right populations, whether that’s providing best evidence and best practices around harm reduction, whether that’s being able to identify populations at risk that we don’t anticipate being at risk.”
Although the opioid epidemic has lasted for around 30 years, OD Pulse reported that stimulant drugs overtook opioids as the leading cause of drug deaths in the U.S. as of June 2025.
Overdoses as a result of both types of drugs are declining overall. Stimulants encompass illegal drugs such as methamphetamine and cocaine, while opioids include fentanyl and oxycodone.
Nabarun Dasgupta, a senior scientist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said he appreciates using OD Pulse for his research because it innovates upon his previous overdose tracking work.
“It saves me time and is more rigorous and better than what I’d been doing before, which was very similar,” Dasgupta said. “I like OD Pulse because it takes away the tediousness. Also, their process is much more rigorous.”
Before her OD Pulse research, Post initially tracked COVID-19, working to monitor the virus’s intensity, persistence, change in speed and change in acceleration in order to predict its spread.
She added that her metrics allowed her to identify and announce the incoming Omicron variant eight days early. Realizing she could apply her experience in surveillance and prediction to other issues, Post said she began to use her methodology to analyze drug overdoses.
However, Post and Unick agree that their research is facing a major challenge: delayed data. According to February’s report, government databases report overdose deaths several months later than other causes of death. Compounded by the government shutdown that lasted from October to November 2025, which inhibited communication with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this issue led to a 4.5-month blind spot in their research.
Unick feels that surveillance cutbacks implemented by the Trump administration contributed to the delayed data.
“We can’t really rely on our federal data systems to be there tomorrow for us,” Dasgupta said. “I think another role that OD Pulse plays is being an independent historical repository for this information, which could disappear tomorrow.”
Unick also said while academic work is often viewed as theoretical and separate from real-world issues, the collection and use of data can help achieve real change.
“We run our regressions and we do our data analysis and we publish in our academic journals,” Unick said. “But getting high-quality, timely, actionable information to people that have the ability to make life-changing decisions is really important.”
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