For the first time in U.S. history, the odds of accidentally dying of an overdose are greater than those of dying in a car accident, CNN reports.
The bleak statistic comes from the National Safety Council’s (NSC) latest annual report, which analyzes preventable injury and fatality statistics from 2017. In addition to overtaking the risk of dying in a car accident, overdose risk also surpassed the risk of death from falls, pedestrian incidents, drowning
How many people died of overdoses, exactly? According to the federal and state data the NSC examined, the lifetime odds of dying of an accidental overdose in the United States are 1 in 96. For motor vehicles, those odds are 1 in 103; for falls, they are 1 in 114. The lifetime odds for suicide are 1 in 88.
“Too many people still believe the opioid crisis is abstract and will not impact
The study did not take into account other illnesses or causes of death associated with the opioid epidemic, including complications from hepatitis C virus (HCV), HIV or other infections. If factored in, the death rate would likely be much higher.
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