The risk of overdose deaths following exposure to strong opioid analgesics was low but higher than population death rates for men under 50 and women under 40 years. Preventive strategies based on risk markers such as sex, age and opioid analgesic strengths, combined with other known risk markers, can help guide safer prescription of opioid analgesics and reduce overdose death.
Amundsen et al. (2026) studied this question.
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