Opioid hospitalizations are up in almost every region of Canada
Opioids have become a national epidemic, not just for the United States, but for Canada as well. They have claimed the lives of more than 2,800 people in Canada alone in 2016.
From its latest report, the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) has found that just under 5,000 people were hospitalized in 2014-2015. The highest number of hospitalizations ever recorded and a 41 percent change increase from 2007-2008. It has also estimated that on average, 16 percent of Canadians are hospitalized every day for opioid poisoning.
The crisis isn’t being dominated by one province or region, it’s affecting every corner of the country. In fact, only PEI and the Territories have seen declines in opioid poisoning hospitalization rates. Every other region of the country has seen some sort of increase.
P.E.I and the Territories are the only regions where opioid hospitalization rates decreased
rates per 100,000 population
Apart from Manitoba, Western Canada has been hit the hardest by the crisis. From 2007-2008 to 2014-2015 Alberta had the highest increase in opioid poisoning hospitalizations, while Saskatchewan and British Columbia have the highest rates of opioid poisoning in the country, and by a wide margin.
The good news is that the amount of opioids being prescribed is down overall. The opioid crisis in Canada, and in the US is a prescriptions related issue. Millions of Canadians and Americans are being prescribed these drugs which is resulting in their addiction and their eventual poisoning. The decrease in the amount of opioids being prescribed, therefore, will need to be something policy makers strive towards.
Amount of Opioids prescribed are down in Canada, and in half of its provinces
rates per 100,000 population
British Columbia had the biggest drop in the amount of opioids prescribed, but the province with the lowest rate is Quebec. According to Dr. Robert Strang a chief medical officer for Nova Scotia the new report shows that Quebec needs to be looked at as an example for why it’s so different from the rest of the country.
Quebec is certainly the biggest outlier, and while the amount of prescriptions is on the decline, the number of people being prescribed opioids is still extremely high. In 2016 there were more than 21 million prescriptions, and more than 800 million dollars was spent on all opioid prescriptions.
The CIHI’s reports also show the crisis affecting every age group, but mostly the elderly. 
Age groups of 45-64 and 65+ had the highest rates of opioid-related poisoning in Canada. This is in large part due to the fact that seniors had the highest rates of opioid prescriptions in Canada between 2012 and 2016, according to the CIHI. The report also shows that 1 in 8 seniors prescribed an opioid was prescribed a strong opioid on a chronic basis.
“Seniors are at greater risk for opioid-related harms due to several factors, including age-related changes in drug absorption and metabolism, and cognitive changes that may increase the risk of accidental drug poisoning,” wrote the CIHI .
Decreasing the rate of opioid deaths and hospitalizations will be a difficult task for policymakers because they are affecting the most vulnerable groups. The problem will not just be addressing the death and hospitalization rates, but also the prescriptions, which are a causing the crisis.
Notes
The cleaning, and analysis was all done in Python.
I used D3.js to create the charts. I used HTML, and CSS, to build the page layout.