US drug poisoning deaths by race, 1999 to 2020
US drug poisoning deaths by race stood at 27 in 2020, up 29.4% on the previous period.
The rate of drug poisoning (overdose) deaths in the United States, per 100,000 population, compared across racial groups. The latest readings (2020): Black or African American at 32.3, American Indian or Alaska Native at 28.5, White at 27.3, Asian or Pacific Islander at 5.5.
How it is measured
Every point is built from death certificates: each US death is certified, assigned an underlying cause under the ICD-10 coding standard, and compiled in CDC WONDER. Rates divide deaths by group population, so groups of different sizes are directly comparable, and small counts are suppressed by CDC privacy rules rather than shown imprecisely. The modern coding standard begins in 1999, which is where this series starts, keeping every year internally comparable.
What the curve shows
The overdose curve is the deadliest drug epidemic in US history; its acceleration after 2013 tracks the arrival of illicit fentanyl in the supply. Rates, not counts, make the group comparison honest; the remaining gaps and their direction of travel are the substance of the chart.
What does per 100,000 mean?
How is the cause of death decided?
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