CDC: Opioid Overdoses at Record High Last Year

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) analysis of national mortality data finds that opioid overdose deaths hit a record high in the United States in 2014.

The CDC analyzed recent multiple cause-of-death mortality data in an effort to examine current trends and characteristics of drug overdose deaths, including the types of opioids associated with drug overdose deaths. During 2014, a total of 47,055 drug overdose deaths occurred in the U.S., representing a 1-year increase of 6.5%, from 13.8 per 100,000 persons in 2013 to 14.7 per 100,000 in 2014.
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According to the CDC’s analysis, the rate of drug overdose deaths increased significantly among both sexes, individuals between the ages of 25 and 44 as well as those 55 and older, non-Hispanic whites and non-Hispanic blacks, and in the Northeastern, Midwestern, and Southern regions of the United States. Rates of opioid overdose deaths increased greatly as well, according to the CDC analysis, rising from 7.9 per 100,000 in 2013 to 9.0 per 100,000 in 2014, accounting for a 14% increase.

Natural and semi-synthetic opioid pain-relievers such as morphine and oxycodone, for example, were involved in the highest number of opioid deaths, at 3.8 per 100,000 people. This amounted to a 9% increase from 2013. Meanwhile, deaths from synthetic opioids such as illegal fentanyl, rose by 80% last year.

To reverse the epidemic of opioid drug overdose deaths and prevent opioid-related mortality, “efforts to improve safer prescribing of prescription opioids must be intensified,” says Matthew Gladden, PhD, a senior epidemiologist with CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, and co-author of the report, noting that the CDC has developed a draft guideline for the prescribing of opioids for chronic pain, available at www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/prescribing/guideline.html. The draft guideline is currently posted on the Federal Register for public comment.

—Mark McGraw

Reference

Rudd R, Aleshire N, et al. Increases in Drug and Opioid Overdose Deaths - United States 2000 - 2014. MMWR. 2015.