Using contributing causes of death improves prediction of opioid involvement in unclassified drug overdoses in US death records.

ABSTRACT:

Background and aims

A substantial share of fatal drug overdoses is missing information on specific drug involvement, leading to under-reporting of opioid-related death rates and a misrepresentation of the extent of the opioid epidemic. We aimed to compare methodological approaches to predicting opioid involvement in unclassified drug overdoses in US death records and to estimate the number of fatal opioid overdoses from 1999 to 2016 using the best-performing method.

Design

This was a secondary data analysis of the universe of drug overdoses in 1999-2016 obtained from the National Center for Health Statistics Detailed Multiple Cause of Death records.

Setting

United States.

Cases

A total of 632 331 drug overdose decedents. Drug overdoses with known drug classific

SUBMITTER: Boslett AJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9745785 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature