Email UpdatesThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently updated their Provisional Drug Overdose Death Counts to include new data, which show a 10.6% drop in overdose deaths from April 2023 (112,470 deaths) to April 2024 (101,168 deaths) in the United States. It is the first time that overdose deaths have declined since they started rapidly accelerating in 2020. While this drop is significant, especially for some states, the cause of the decrease is not yet known. More research is underway to investigate the reason for the new trend. An early KFF analysis examined the decline by how trends vary by age, race, sex, and state.
Update (March 2025): Newly released provisional CDC data indicates that deaths due to drug overdose continue to decrease. The CDC estimates that the United States experienced 87,000 overdose deaths in September 2024, marking an approximate 14% drop from April 2024 estimations and a 23.7% 12-month decline. Many individual states had significant 12-month decreases in overdose deaths, including North Carolina (-50.27%), Virginia (-35.05%), West Virginia (-32.79%), Ohio (-32.32%), Michigan (-32.01%), New Hampshire (-30.88%), New Jersey (-30.61%), and Arkansas (-30.32%). Notably, 5 states (Utah, Nevada, Montana, South Dakota, and Alaska) saw increases in their 12-month estimated overdose deaths; of these states, the largest increases occurred in Nevada and Alaska (11.30% and 16.92%, respectively).
The AHRQ Academy will share more information as it becomes known. Sign up for the Academy Newsletter to remain up to date on the latest research, news, and resources on Behavioral Health Integration.