Opioid Deaths, December 2018

East-West Gateway’s December 2018 Map of the Month features data from the recently released eighth edition of Where We Stand, which ranks the St. Louis MSA among the 50 most populous regions in the country. Deaths with opioid drugs as a contributing cause have increased dramatically across the country with the largest rates seen mostly in Midwest and Northeast regions. In 2016, St. Louis had the 10th largest rate of opioid-drug related deaths among the peer regions with a rate of 26.4 deaths per 100,000 population. This rate is twice that of the United States and larger than most of the peer regions. Check out more on where St. Louis stands at www.ewgateway.org/research-center/where-we-stand/.