Cities Now See More Overdose Deaths than Rural Areas

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. drug overdose deaths, which have been concentrated in Appalachia and other rural areas for more than a dozen years, are back to being most common in big cities again, according to a government report issued Friday. The report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the urban overdose death rate surpassed the rural rate in 2016 and 2017. Rates for last year and this year are not yet available. But experts, citing available data, say the urban rate is likely to stay higher in the near future. The difference between the urban and rural counties was not large. In 2017, there were 22 overdose deaths per 100,000 people living in urban areas, compared with 20 per 100,000 in rural areas. The nation is battling the deadliest drug overdose epidemic in U.S. history. About 68,000 Americans died of overdoses last year, according to preliminary CDC statistics reported last month. Experts believe the epidemic has been playing out differently in different parts of the country, and they say it is best understood by comparing geographic regions — Appalachia and the Northeast, for example. The new CDC report looked at urban and rural overdose death rates for the nation overall. The researchers found both rates have been rising, but the urban rate shot up more dramatically after 2015 to surpass the rural rate. New York, Chicago and Baltimore all reported dramatic spikes in overdose deaths in the last few years, and they are not alone. Diego Cuadros, a Univ...
Source: JEMS Patient Care - Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: News Patient Care AP News Tag Source Type: news