Three months after promising a fuller accounting of the county's overdose numbers, the Wentworth County Department of Health delivered Wednesday, releasing neighborhood-level data showing Lowertown and Cedar Hollow bearing a disproportionate share of the county's overdose deaths.
The Wentworth County Department of Health released its full annual overdose report Wednesday, confirming 61 overdose deaths countywide over the past year and, for the first time, breaking the figures down by neighborhood. The report shows Lowertown and Cedar Hollow together accounted for 38 of the 61 deaths, roughly 62 percent, despite the two neighborhoods holding a smaller share of the county’s overall population.
“We’ve talked about this concentration anecdotally for years,” said Dr. Kwame Asare, the department’s director. “Now we have the neighborhood-level data to actually show it, which matters because it changes where you target outreach vans, where you put sober-living beds, and where you focus prevention money.”
A promise kept, three months later
Asare had promised the fuller report when the department released preliminary countywide numbers earlier this year showing overdose deaths falling for a third straight year, down from 79 the year before and a peak of 118 three years ago. The full report took longer than the two months Asare originally estimated, which he attributed to the added work of building neighborhood-level breakdowns for the first time rather than any change in the underlying numbers.
“The topline number didn’t move from what we announced before,” Asare said. “What took the extra time was making sure the neighborhood data held up to scrutiny, because I didn’t want to publish a breakdown and then have to walk part of it back.”
We’ve talked about this concentration anecdotally for years. Now we have the neighborhood-level data to actually show it, which matters because it changes where you target outreach vans, where you put sober-living beds, and where you focus prevention money.
Dr. Kwame Asare, Director, Wentworth County Department of Health
Age data shows a shifting population
The report also confirms a trend Bellwater General Health System chief executive Dr. Angela Whitcombe has described anecdotally in recent months: the median age of overdose deaths has climbed from 34 three years ago to 41 today, with the department’s data showing overdose deaths among residents older than 50 nearly doubling over that period even as deaths among residents younger than 30 declined by roughly a third.
“This isn’t the demographic most people picture when they think about this crisis,” Asare said. “A lot of our systems, from outreach programs to sober-living intake, were built with a younger population in mind. We’re going to need to think about how the county’s response ages along with the population it’s serving.”
Neighborhoods react differently
Council Member Gary Petrowski, who represents Cedar Hollow, said the neighborhood breakdown confirmed what he has argued for years in budget negotiations. “I’ve been told more than once that I was overstating how concentrated this crisis is in my district,” Petrowski said. “I don’t enjoy being right about something like this, but at least now there’s a number attached to it instead of just my word.”
Council Member Terrence Boudreaux, who represents Lowertown, said he wants the county to commit to publishing the neighborhood breakdown annually going forward rather than as a one-time addition. “Data like this only helps if we keep tracking it the same way every year,” Boudreaux said. “Otherwise we can’t tell if the investments we’re making are actually closing the gap between Lowertown and the rest of the county, or just moving the same problem around.”
Additional analysis still to come
Asare said the department is preparing a supplemental analysis examining disparities in overdose death rates by race, which he said requires additional data-sharing agreements with the state medical examiner’s office and will be released separately in the coming months. He declined to preview specific findings, saying the department wanted to complete its review before discussing any conclusions publicly.
“I’d rather take the extra time and get that analysis right than rush it out alongside this report,” Asare said. “The neighborhood data alone raised enough questions that I don’t want to attach an incomplete answer to a different question on top of it.”
Donna Wysocki, executive director of Wayfinder Recovery Services, said the neighborhood data validates the geographic focus of her organization’s sober-living and outpatient programs, both concentrated in Lowertown. “We didn’t need a report to tell us where the need was, because we see it every day,” Wysocki said. “But it helps when we go to funders and can point to county data instead of just our own caseload.”
Asare said the department will present the full report, including the neighborhood breakdown, to the Wentworth County Board of Commissioners next month as part of ongoing discussions over how to allocate the county’s share of a separate pool of opioid litigation settlement funds. He said he hopes the geographic data will help commissioners weigh where new treatment and prevention spending should be directed.
“Numbers don’t allocate money by themselves,” Asare said. “But I’d rather commissioners make that decision with this data in front of them than without it.”