A new report finds there has been an “alarming” increase in drug overdoses in Kentucky in recent years. The data compiled for the study was collected over an eleven year period.
The Kentucky Injury Prevention and Research Center says drug overdose mortality rates increased 282 percent between 2000 and 2010. In the Bluegrass State, that means the overdose mortality rate has jumped from six deaths per one hundred thousand people to nearly 23 deaths per one hundred thousand people during that eleven year period.
The Research Center is located in the University of Kentucky’s College of Public Health, and is an agent for the Kentucky Department of Public Health. The new report is based on an examination of emergency departments, inpatient hospitalization statistics, and mortality data.
