Fatalities from Prescription Opioid Overdoses

Injury from poisoning exists under several Injury Intents: unintentional (accidental), intentional self-harm, assault, undetermined and adverse effect and underdosing. Only injuries in the first four categories are reported here combined. The data show rates per 100,000 people in order to standardize between areas with different population levels. Except for age specific rates, we use age-adjusted rates because they take into account where one age group dominates a population and thus are more representative. We use diagnosis by hospital records for non-fatal injury and cause of death from death certificates for fatal injury information.