New data from the Boston Public Health Commission found that opioid overdose deaths are continuing to decline in the city.

According to preliminary findings, the Health Commission found that there were 120 opioid overdose deaths in 2025, the lowest annual number in a decade. The number was a 29% decline from 2024.

There were roughly 200 annual deaths from 2016 through 2019, before rising to a peak in 2023, according to data from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, analyzed by the Boston Public Health Commission.

Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, Boston’s public health commissioner, said the city believes a handful of factors have contributed. In particular, she pointed to ongoing municipal efforts to connect residents with harm reduction services and a range of treatments.

“What we believe is these findings are the result of sustained and targeted investment in the entire continuum of services for people living with substance use disorder, from harm reduction services to treatment, to recovery services,” Ojikutu said.

For the Boston Public Health Commission, the lingering deaths mean there’s more work to be done, but Ojikutu called the decline “a major public health achievement” and said the 2025 preliminary data represents “a significant milestone for our city.”

But the toll from the opioid epidemic hasn’t hit all parts of the city equally. After the South End — where Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard (“Mass and Cass”), often considered the epicenter of the city’s opioid epidemic, is located — Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan saw the highest rates of fatal overdoses over the past four years. According to the new city data, Black and Latine residents accounted for 37% of the city’s total population, but about 48% of overdose deaths in 2025.

For some community leaders focused on decreasing overdose deaths, those gaps mean that, despite the decreases across the board, the city’s new data is nothing to celebrate yet.

“There’s an awful lot of work to be done,” said Greg Davis, executive director of Metro Boston Alive, a Roxbury-based substance-use resource center. “I do not feel that this is the time to cheer and say that [deaths] went down tremendously.”

As the city has worked to lower overdose deaths, it has targeted efforts in the communities that have seen the worst mortality rates.

The Public Health Commission awarded $1 million to five organizations working toward such efforts in September 2024, using city funds secured via court settlements with pharmaceutical companies and distributors, including Johnson and Johnson, Walmart, CVS and Walgreens. Largely in Dorchester and Roxbury, the awarded organizations are running education partnerships and connecting residents to treatment and distributing naloxone, often referred to as Narcan, a medication that reverses the effects of opioid overdose.

Organizations partnered with the city distributed more than 5,000 doses of naloxone and connected nearly 2,000 people to substance-use treatment and other services in 2025, Ojikutu said.

Cyril Ubiem, senior vice president of programs and services at Harvard Street Neighborhood Health Center, said he was proud of the decline and saw the reduction in deaths as something to be happy about.

“To see this translated into lives being saved and a reduction in the death rate is a testament to the fact that the harm reduction program is working,” said Ubiem, who has been helping lead the health center’s partnership with the Boston Public Health Commission to prevent overdose deaths using the opioid settlement funds.

Davis said he hasn’t seen enough on the ground change in hotspots in Roxbury, like in Nubian Square, to merit celebration. He urged for more resources directly to the area around Nubian Station, where they’re needed most.

“Shut the street down one day and let all the resources come down there, and set up,” Davis pitched. His organization was also awarded opioid settlement funds to help prevent deaths. “We’ll start addressing those folks where they’re at. Why do we expect they’re going to come to us?”

The focused initiatives to close gaps may be making progress. Among Black residents, fatal overdoses declined, on average, by 65% over 2024 and 2025 compared to 2023. Among Latine residents, fatal overdoses declined, on average, by 52% over the two years compared to 2023.

But while the disparities persist, advocates like Davis say they plan to keep pressing the city.

“I won’t disagree that it’s going down. However, I have to keep challenging them to do more, especially for my people,” Davis said.

At a press conference, Ojikutu acknowledged that there’s more work to be done. She said the city-wide decline may also be, in part, due to broader factors. Such shifts could include a reduction in the concentration of fentanyl in the drug supply — which is more potent and likely to cause overdoses — as well as a potentially shrinking population of people using opioids in the first place. The Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a national data collection effort that tracks health risk behaviors in middle and high school students, recently found a decreasing number of students using drugs.

The city is expected to receive $40 million over the next 12 years through the opioid settlement dollars coming into Massachusetts.

At a showcase of the projects those funds have been used to support in March, city officials said the Commission intends to keep incoming dollars focused on making initiatives last.

“We’re thinking about sustainability of funding, so that we’re not just funding one-off initiatives, but we’re really looking at longevity of funded initiatives that could have lasting effect,” said Michele Clark, deputy commissioner of programs and services at the Boston Public Health Commission, at the time.

Ensuring that sustainability is baked into solutions should be a priority according to community leaders.

“Yes, we can celebrate, we can be happy now that it is going down. … [But] let’s find a way to sustain the progress that has been made right now,” Ubiem said. “If you see something that’s working and you stop, then that’s a big problem.”