The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released new data showing that the number of Americans who died from drug overdoses in 2016 increased by 21 percent over 2015. This represents a 50 percent increase over five years and 225 percent increase since 1999. – From Trust for America’s Health, January 3, 2018.
Trust for America’s Health’s analysis of the data found that overdose rates increased in 40 states and Washington, D.C. between 2015 and 2016.
- Seventeen states had increases of 25 percent or more while the largest increases were in Washington, D.C. (109 percent), Maryland (59 percent) and Florida (46 percent). Rates decreased in 9 states.
- The highest 2016 drug death rates were in West Virginia (52.0 per
100,000 deaths), Ohio (39.1 per 100,000 deaths) and New Hampshire
(39.0 per 100,000 deaths). - In 2016, 24 states and Washington, D.C. had rates above 20 per 100,000
deaths. In 2005, no state had a rate above 20 per 100,000 deaths and
only five states had rates above 15 per 100,000 deaths. - Drug deaths could reach 163,000 per year by 2025 if recent trends hold, based
on projections in a recently released TFAH and Well Being Trust report, Pain
in the Nation: The Drug, Alcohol and Suicide Epidemics and the Need for a
National Resilience Strategy. The report calls for a “comprehensive, multi-
prong approach to respond to the ‘despair deaths’ of drugs, alcohol and
suicide – from immediate harm reduction to a long-term strategy to bolster
the nation’s resilience.” - The PAINS project has released an educational brief, Understanding Chronic
Pain and Suicide. The brief “explores the complex biological, psychological,
social, and environmental factors in the relationship between these two
public health issues.”