Overdose death rate 12 times higher among newly released inmates than public: study
TORONTO — Inmates of Ontario correctional facilities are 12 times more likely than the general public to die of a drug overdose within the first year following their release from incarceration, say researchers, who believe concrete interventions are needed to reduce these preventable deaths.
In a study published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE, researchers found that 702 of the almost 7,000 Ontarians who overdosed on drugs between 2006 and 2013 had been released from custody in a provincial jail or remand centre.
“The highest risk period is shortly after their release, in the days and the weeks following their release,” said principal researcher Dr. Nav Persaud, a physician in the department of family and community medicine at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto.
Nine per cent of these men and women died within the first two days of leaving custody and 20 per cent within the first week, the researchers found. Three-quarters of them were under age 45.