Provisional U.S. Drug Overdose Death Counts by Specific Drug and HHS Region

Provisional counts of drug overdose deaths in the United States, identified by specific drugs and categorized by HHS public health regions. The data is based on a current flow of mortality data from the National Vital Statistics System and uses literal text from death certificates to identify specific drugs involved. Counts are for 12-month ending periods, with data last updated on 2026-01-28.

Use Cases

• Analyze temporal trends in overdose deaths for specific drugs using `time_period`, `death_year`, and `drug_involved`.
• Compare overdose counts across different jurisdictions using `jurisdiction_occurrence` and `drug_overdose_deaths`.
• Identify seasonal patterns or data reporting lags using `death_month`, `month_ending_date`, and `data_as_of`.
• Filter and subset data for specific drug categories or intent codes using `drug_involved` and the underlying ICD-10 codes described.

Strengths

• Data is sourced from the authoritative National Vital Statistics System via data.cdc.gov.
• Includes provisional counts for 12-month ending periods, allowing for near-real-time trend analysis.
• Specific drugs are identified using literal text from death certificates, which suggests detailed cause-of-death information.

Limitations

• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale modeling.
• Data represents counts, not mortality rates, and the description cautions against using it to determine populations at disproportionate risk.
• Freshness should be verified; the last metadata update was 2026-01-28, which is a future date and may indicate a placeholder or error.

Provenance

Source

National Vital Statistics System, published via data.cdc.gov.

Collection Method

Provisional mortality data flow; specific drugs identified by searching literal text from death certificates.

Time Range

Covers 12-month ending periods; specific date range is not provided in the input.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-01-28 15:11:18; freshness should be verified.

Geography

United States, categorized by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) public health regions.