Opioid’s deadly grip on the US continued to tighten in 2015, pushing up death rates across the board, according to new data released Friday by the National Center for Health Statistics, a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Overall, drug overdose deaths rose to 16.3 per 100,000 in 2015—that’s 2.5 times the 1999 rate of 6.1 per 100,000. In that time range, increases were seen for both men and women, as well as across all age groups and races, with whites seeing the most dramatic increases. Generally, overdoses of opioid painkillers continued to be a leading killer, but heroin and synthetic opioids, such as deadly fentanyl, are behind an increasing number of deaths.
Drug overdose deaths rose 43 percent in Hispanic persons, 63 percent among blacks, and 240 percent in whites.
Among the age groups, the hardest hit is the 45-to-54 group. While all age groups saw increases in death, the 55-to-64 group saw the biggest increase, with a five-fold jump since 1999.