Heroin Overdose Data
In 2020, heroin-involved overdose death rates decreased nearly 7% from 2019 to 2020. However, more than 13,000 people died from a drug overdose involving heroin in the United States, a rate of more than four deaths for every 100,000 Americans. The number of heroin-involved overdose deaths was nearly seven times higher in 2020 than in 1999. Nearly 20% of all opioid deaths involved heroin.1
2019-2020
2018-2019
2017-2018
2016-2017
Heroin Overdose Urbanicity
The figures below show the changes in age-adjusted death rates involving heroin by urbanization classification of residence from year to year.
- Large central metro—Counties in metropolitan statistical areas of 1 million or more population that:
- Contain the entire population of the largest principal city
- Have their entire population contained in the largest principal city
- Contain at least 250,000 inhabitants of any principal city
- Large fringe metro—Counties of 1 million or more population that did not qualify as large central metro counties.
- Medium metro—Counties of populations of 250,000 to 999,999.
- Small metro—Counties of populations less than 250,000.
- Micropolitan—Counties in micropolitan statistical areas that have a population of at least 10,000 but less than 50,000.
- Noncore—Nonmetropolitan counties that did not qualify as micropolitan.
Categories of 2013 NCHS Urban-Rural Classification Scheme for Counties
References
- Wide-ranging online data for epidemiologic research (WONDER). Atlanta, GA: CDC, National Center for Health Statistics; 2021. Available at http://wonder.cdc.gov.
