The Drug Overdose Epidemic in America’s Suburbs
A heroin user prepares to inject himself on March 23, 2016, in New London, Conn.
Photographer: John Moore/Getty ImagesA decade ago the suburbs were the safest place in America when it came to the number of drug overdoses. Now they’re the most dangerous. That’s one finding in a shocking report released Wednesday.
“This has been a very dark report,” says Marjory Givens, one of the authors of the 2017 County Health Rankings. She is deputy director of data and science for the project as well as an associate scientist at the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute. “We’re facing a crisis here.”
To compare causes of death, the ranking project analyzed how many years of potential life were lost per 100,000 people from various causes of death. It used age 75 as the baseline, so if one person died of an overdose at age 25, it would count as 50 years of potential life lost. Large suburban metros had the lowest ratio of potential life lost of any type of community in 2006 but the highest of any type of community in 2015, which was the last year studied. The suburban increase in potential life lost was about 50 percent.