Toxic drugs lowered life expectancy for B.C. men more than COVID-19 during pandemic: StatsCan report

A new report from Statistics Canada, co-authored by several members of British Columbia's Office of the Provincial Health Officer, shows that during the COVID-19 pandemic, life expectancy at birth decreased — a decline that was driven in large part by deaths caused by the toxic unregulated drug supply.

According to the report, compared to 2019 when life expectancy for both men and women in B.C. peaked — about 81 years for men and about 85.5 years for women — there was a dip during the pandemic of as much as 1.8 years for men and more than half a year for women.

For women, the number one cause for the decrease in life expectancy was COVID-19 infection, followed by unregulated drug toxicity deaths. For men, that was flipped, with drug deaths being the main factor.

Dr. Daniele Behn Smith, deputy provincial health officer, said the research team wanted to look into how the pandemic contributed to other causes of death, beyond COVID-19 infections.

"What were the impacts outside of that, as it related to all of the societal-type impacts that came with the public health response?" Behn Smith said.

During the pandemic, the drug supply in B.C. become increasingly contaminated and even more lethal and toxic than it had been before, said Behn Smith. In addition, public health measures led to more people using drugs alone and experiencing mental health stress, she added.

For Mona Woodward, a director on the board of the Surrey Union of Drug Users, the report's findings didn't come as a surprise. She witnessed an increased sense of risk during the pandemic and knew people who were killed by drugs during that time.

"I think it got more dangerous because you have to do a lot of things in isolation and there wasn't a lot of people around," Woodward said. "There was nobody around and it was scary. It was really, really scary — It had that eery feeling."

Woodward said the facilities like shelters and supervised drug consumption sites remained open and full of people, but people still spent much more time alone.

According to Behn Smith, though 2023 data isn't included in the StatsCan report, it shows women returning to pre-pandemic life expectancy and men improving, but not quite reaching that 2019 peak of nearly 81 years.