Document Type

Report

Publication Date

7-24-2017

Research Center

Northern Ohio Data and Information Service (NODIS)

Abstract

Deaths from opioids, specifically heroin and fentanyl, have been increasing at alarming rates nationally, in Ohio, and in Cuyahoga County. Cleveland.com reports that the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner asserts that “Cuyahoga County is still on pace to far exceed last year's (2016) record number of heroin and fentanyl overdose deaths after seeing an increase in April (2017)”. The Medical Examiner’s Office also reports that there is an increasing number of African American fatalities due to fentanyl. In 2016, 72 of the 544 deaths (13.2%) from heroin and fentanyl were African Americans; in the first quarter of 2017, 31 of 146 such deaths (21.2%) were Black.

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