The rate of Indigenous overdose deaths in Victoria was three times higher than non-Indigenous fatal overdoses, a new coronial report has found.
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A total of 76 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people died from an overdose in Victoria between January 2018 and December 2021, the state's first collection of such data shows.
This amounts to a rate of 24.1 fatal overdoses per 100,000 people each year, compared to a rate of 7.8 per 100,000 for non-Indigenous Victorians.
Most overdose deaths among Indigenous Victorians occurred in Melbourne, although the proportion of regional deaths was higher among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (42.1 per cent) than non-Indigenous people (24.3 per cent).
More than 80 per cent of Indigenous fatal overdoses were unintentional.
The data provides valuable insights to government and the health sector on where resources are needed, State Coroner Judge John Cain said.
"Drug-related harms are complex and constantly changing," he said in a statement on Friday.
"Such issues cannot be countered without up-to-date information about drug prevalence and use in the community."
The report was developed by the Koori-led Coroners Aboriginal Engagement Unit and the Coroners Prevention Unit.
The engagement unit's manager Troy Williamson said the new report was "challenging but significant".
"It puts information into the hands of Victorian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and reinforces the importance of placing culturally safe practices at the heart of health and wellbeing resources for our communities," he said.
The Coroners Court also released on Friday its overall data for the state's overdose deaths between June 2020 and June 2022, showing 1031 deaths over the reporting period with males accounting for about two-thirds.
Almost 80 per cent of fatal overdoses happened in metropolitan Melbourne.
Community health service Cohealth has called for action, saying another supervised injection room in the city centre could have saved those lives.
"The tragedy is that these deaths are preventable," chief executive Nicole Bartholomeusz said in a statement.
"We are heartbroken about the number of lives that continue to be lost from drug overdoses, especially because we know that if a supervised injecting service was available, those people would still be alive."
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Australian Associated Press
