The Rise Of Overdose Deaths In Rural America
Age-Adjusted Death Rates From Drug Poisoning Per 10,000 People Rossen et al. Over the past few decades, the rate of people dying by drug overdose in the U.S. has risen dramatically. Drug overdose has become one of the leading causes of injury deaths in America, mostly due to the abuse of opioid painkillers like Oxycontin, which are responsible for the majority of fatal drug overdoses. According to a new study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the rise in drug deaths hasn't been evenly spread out across the country, but has gone up most dramatically in rural areas. The researchers, from the National Center for Health Statistics, used small-area estimation statistics to estimate age-adjusted death rates for drug poisoning for each county in the U.S. They found that death rates from drugs have gone up in all regions of the county in...