Overdose Good Samaritan Laws (GSLs) aim to reduce mortality by providing limited legal protections when an overdose bystander summons help. Most research into the impact of these laws is dated or potentially confounded by co-enacted naloxone access laws. Lack of awareness and trust in GSL protections, as well as fear of police involvement and legal repercussions, remain key deterrents of help-seeking. These barriers may be unequally distributed by race due to racist policing and drug policies, potentially producing racial disparities in the effectiveness of GSLs for reducing overdose mortality. We used 2015-2019 vital statistics data to estimate the effect of recent GSLs on overdose mortality, overall (eight states) and by Black/white race (four states). Given GSLs’ near ubiquity, few unexposed states were available for comparison. We therefore proposed an “inverted” synthetic control method (SCM) to compare overdose mortality in new-GSL states to states with GSLs throughout the analytic period. The estimated relationships between GSLs and overdose mortality, both overall and stratified by Black/white race, were consistent with chance. An absence of effect could result from insufficient protection provided by the laws, insufficient awareness of them, and/or reticence to summon help not addressable by legal protections. The inverted SCM may be useful for evaluating other widespread policies.
Using an inverted synthetic control method to estimate effects of recent overdose Good Samaritan Laws, overall and by Black/white race
American Journal of Epidemiology, 191 (10), 1783-1791. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwac122.