{shortcode-3a7e19008441237d14c6858cd0390ce3aaa7f2e1}

Opioid overdoses and overdose-related deaths in Cambridge decreased in 2024 from the previous year, according to a report released by the Cambridge Public Health Department on Thursday.

There were 116 reported opioid overdoses in Cambridge in 2024, a significant drop from the 161 reported in 2023 and 219 in 2022, based on Pro EMS ambulance data. Eighteen people died in Cambridge from opioid-related overdoses, according to Massachusetts Department of Public Health data in city reports — a substantial decrease from 31 in 2023 and 45 in 2022, when overdoses and deaths hovered around a post-pandemic high.

Nine Cambridge residents, based on residency status, died in Massachusetts of opioid overdoses last year, according to the report. Among the residents who died, eight also had fentanyl in their system, according to municipal toxicology data included in the report. Cocaine and xylazine, a powerful veterinary sedative, were each present in more than half of resident deaths.

The decline in Cambridge overdoses and deaths coincided with a nationwide trend last year, according to Danielle K. McPeak, the prevention and recovery specialist at the Cambridge Department of Public Health. McPeak said the overall decline may have been caused by federal success in curtailing fentanyl imports and the growing implementation of harm reduction programs by local governments.

{shortcode-d51822cccb02e90f1826f015ceffd9488f8d46a8}

Cambridge has embraced the harm reduction approach, holding trainings for residents to learn to administer naloxone, a drug that temporarily counteracts opioid overdoses; creating a program that allows residents to exchange used needles for money; and placing boxes of free naloxone in buildings throughout the city.

“People are less likely to overdose because they have the tools to do things like testing their supplies,” McPeak said. “And when people do overdose, they’re much more likely to survive that overdose because of these harm reduction techniques.”

“The goal of that, of course, is that people live long enough to be able to seek treatment and recovery services someday, when they’re ready to,” she added.

In 2024, the Cambridge Public Health Department worked with Somerville Health and Human Services to hold 21 naloxone trainings for 175 participants, according to Thursday’s report. The departments distributed 1,684 doses of naloxone.

Last year, naloxone was administered at 72 percent of reported overdoses in Cambridge. Thirteen percent of overdose reversals in the city were administered by bystanders.

“We wanted to make it something where, if someone’s having any kind of medical emergency in a city building, that they have the tools to react appropriately,” McPeak said, “whether that’s an AED for someone having a heart attack or other cardiac emergency, the naloxone for someone potentially experiencing an overdose, and the stop-the-bleed kits for any traumatic bleeding.”

Pro EMS ambulance and Cambridge Fire Department responses for opioid-related overdoses cluster around high-traffic areas with MBTA stations, particularly Central Square, according to maps in Thursday’s report.

McPeak said the ambulance data may overstate the extent to which overdoses are concentrated in those spaces, because incidents in private or low-traffic locations are less likely to be reported to emergency services.

White people and men make up the majority of overdoses and deaths in Cambridge. But over the past three years, Cambridge has seen a sharper decrease in the number of overdoses among white people and men than among other demographics.

McPeak said that similar disparities have occurred in other cities across the state, but the findings of Cambridge’s study do not point to a reason for the gap. She said the data show that Cambridge needs to consider whether women and people of color may experience particular barriers to receiving addiction aid.

In 2023 and 2024, McPeak was a part of a city team that interviewed individuals in Cambridge and Somerville about their experiences accessing addiction resources. She said that, on the team’s survey, people of color were more likely to say they had encountered barriers to receiving help — though not all said the barriers were related to race — and that women often said they were afraid to seek help in gender-neutral settings.

She added that negative experiences or barriers to accessing help can make or break an individual’s path towards recovery.

“There are a lot of times when people feel like they have the motivation to seek help for something like addiction or substance use disorder, and if they encounter barriers, that can completely kill that motivation,” McPeak said.

—Staff writer Summer E. Rose can be reached at summer.rose@thecrimson.com.