The opioid epidemic: national trends in opioid-related overdose deaths from 2000 to 2017

The opioid epidemic: national trends in opioid-related overdose deaths from 2000 to 2017

Collection:
Health Policy and Services Research
Author(s):
Planalp, Colin, author
Hest, Robert, author
Lahr, Megan, author
Contributor(s):
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, issuing body.
State Health Access Data Assistance Center, University of Minnesota, issuing body.
Publication:
[Minneapolis, Minnesota] : State Health Access Data Assistance Center, June 2019
Language(s):
English
Format:
Text
Subject(s):
Analgesics, Opioid -- adverse effects
Drug Overdose -- mortality
Mortality -- trends
Opioid-Related Disorders -- mortality
United States
Genre(s):
Technical Report
Abstract:
Over the past two decades, the United States has experienced a growing crisis of substance abuse and addiction that is illustrated most starkly by the rise in deaths from drug overdoses. Since 2000, the annual number of drug overdose deaths has quadrupled from 17,500 to 70,000 in 2017. Most of these deaths involved opioids, including heroin, prescription painkillers, and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. In the years since the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) declared overdoses from prescription painkillers an "epidemic" in 2011, the opioid overdose crisis has evolved rapidly from a problem tied mostly to prescription opioid painkillers to one increasingly driven by illicitly trafficked heroin and synthetic opioids. More recently, early evidence suggests that the problem also may be spreading beyond opioids to other illicit drugs, such as cocaine and methamphetamine. This brief provides high-level information about opioids and opioid addiction, presents the historical context for the epidemic of opioid and related addiction and mortality in the United States, and examines trends in opioid-related mortality across the country and among population subgroups.
Copyright:
Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY-NC-ND license. (More information)
Extent:
1 online resource (1 PDF file (13 pages))
Illustrations:
Illustrations
NLM Unique ID:
101753751 (See catalog record)
Permanent Link:
http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101753751