Opioid Abuse Epidemic: How Massachusetts Compares To The Country

In 2015, Massachusetts' rate of opioid overdose deaths was the sixth highest in the country, according to new national data that paints a broad picture of the state of a nation fighting an ongoing crisis.

The Commonwealth has been assiduously tracking its own opioid overdose deaths as they have been climbing in recent years. National numbers recently released by the Centers for Disease Control give a picture of how we compare to other states struggling against the same deadly epidemic. The new numbers look at 2015, the most recent year for which full data is available.

According to the CDC, opioids — both prescription and illegal — were involved in 33,091 deaths in 2015, and opioid overdoses have quadrupled since 1999.

In Massachusetts, the number of opioid overdose deaths in 2015 was 1,724, according to the CDC.

Still, it was not the highest.

In 2015, the five states with the highest rates of death due to drug overdose were West Virginia (41.5 per 100,000), New Hampshire (34.3 per 100,000), Kentucky (29.9 per 100,000), Ohio (29.9 per 100,000) and Rhode Island (28.2 per 100,000).

In Massachusetts, in 2015, that rate was 25.7 per 100,000 people, according to the CDC. That means the Commonwealth narrowly missed the deadly distinction of being included in that "top five."

Massachusetts was among the states with the most significant increases from 2014 to 2015. Those states were largely in the Northeast and South, according to the CDC.

Other states with statistically significant increases in drug overdose death rates from 2014 to 2015 included Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia.

Image via CDC