VSRR: Provisional County-Level Drug Overdose Death Counts in the United States

United States county-level provisional counts of drug overdose deaths, updated quarterly by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). The data includes 12-month-ending provisional death counts, percentages of records pending investigation, and historical completeness notes. Counts are based on death records processed by NCHS as of a specified cutoff date and are subject to revision.

Use Cases

• Analyzing temporal trends in overdose deaths using `Year`, `Month`, and `Provisional Drug Overdose Deaths`.
• Mapping overdose mortality rates by county using `FIPS`, `COUNTYNAME`, and `Provisional Drug Overdose Deaths`.
• Assessing data quality and reporting completeness for surveillance using `Percentage Of Records Pending Investigation` and `HistoricalDataCompletenessNote`.
• Comparing state-level trends using `STATE_NAME`, `ST_ABBREV`, and aggregated county death counts.

Strengths

• Includes data quality metrics like `Percentage Of Records Pending Investigation` to aid interpretation.
• Provides geographic granularity with county (`COUNTYNAME`) and state (`STATE_NAME`) identifiers.
• Data is updated quarterly, offering relatively recent provisional counts.

Limitations

• Provisional counts are often incomplete and may underestimate final death counts.
• Row count and total data size are unknown, limiting suitability assessment.
• Counts between 1-9 are suppressed for confidentiality, which may affect analysis in small counties.

Provenance

Source

National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) via the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS).

Collection Method

Death records received and processed from state vital registration offices through the Vital Statistics Cooperative Program (VSCP).

Time Range

Covers 12-month-ending periods; specific start and end dates are indicated by `Start Date` and `End Date` columns.

Freshness

Updated quarterly; last metadata update was 2026-01-21 17:42:21.

Geography

County-level data for the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.