Oregon homeless deaths disproportionately occur in Multnomah County
Now, all deaths in the state, not just those that a medical examiner would investigate, must note housing status of the deceased in vital records. This means that funeral directors must determine housing status for deaths that a medical examiner didn’t investigate.Mark Graves/The Oregonian
By Nicole Hayden | The Oregonian/OregonLive
August 17, 2022
Multnomah County is the site of a greatly disproportionate share of deaths of homeless people in Oregon, according to new state data released this week.
Of the 207 deaths that occurred from January through June of this year, 35% were in Portland and the rest of Multnomah County, even though county residents only account for 19% of Oregon’s population.
No one can say for sure what share of Oregonians who are homeless live in the state’s most populous county, given the absence of accurate and timely counts.
The new data release constitutes the first-ever statewide look at the deaths of people experiencing homelessness, after the Legislature voted to require county medical examiners and funeral directors to track them. Lawmakers’ and advocates’ thinking was that knowing more about the prevalence and patterns of such death would be a basis to better prevent them.
Among the trends revealed during the first six months of 2022:
Most statewide deaths occurred in January.
While the majority of those who died were white, the highest rate of deaths was among American Indians and Alaskan Natives. Black Oregonians registered the next highest rate of dying while living unsheltered.
Nearly four times as many men died as women.
The age group with the highest number of deaths was 55 to 64.
The state indicated that most deaths were of natural causes followed by unintended injury, but it didn’t note what medical issues contributed to those natural causes or which deaths were drug-related.
If the second half of the year brings as many deaths as the first did, Multnomah County will surpass the 126 homeless deaths that occurred in 2020, the most recent year for which there has been a local report.
Since 2012, Multnomah County’s Health Department, its Medical Examiner’s Office and Street Roots, a local newspaper and homeless advocacy organization, have worked together to publish a yearly county-level “Domicile Unknown” report to understand what those living unsheltered die from.
The latest such report showed that alcohol and drugs, primarily methamphetamines, claimed the lives of most individuals.
The state began collecting information about homeless people’s deaths after passage of Senate Bill 850, which requires that death reports note if an individual was homeless by writing “domicile unknown” as the person’s place of residence. The bill was inspired by Multnomah County’s Domicile Unknown report.
So far, the local report includes much greater detail about people’s deaths than the state data dashboard though the state’s data published more quickly than the local report has in the past.
The most recent Multnomah County report took nearly a year to publish.
Jonathan Modie, Oregon Health Authority spokesperson, said the state data is preliminary and more detailed cause of death information will be published in the fall of 2023.
Kate Yeiser, Multnomah County spokesperson, said the state numbers will help round out the county’s annual count of homeless deaths, which have always been an undercount
“Multnomah County advocated for this measure and embraces this additional set of data,” Yeiser said. “The new vital records data with be an additional source of information beginning with next year’s (county) Domicile Unknown report.”
Yeiser said the county’s homeless deaths have been undercounted because the data collection only relied on information from the county medical examiner. Not all deaths fall under the medical examiner’s jurisdiction. A medical examiner investigates suspicious deaths, homicides, suicides, accidents, unlawful use of controlled substance, unexpected deaths, incarcerated deaths, contagious diseases and on-the-job deaths.
Now, all deaths in the state, not just those that a medical examiner would investigate, must note housing status of the deceased in vital records. This means that funeral directors must determine housing status for deaths that a medical examiner didn’t investigate.
