A Northwestern Medicine study finds that a fourth wave of the opioid crisis is already happening and will not discriminate between rural and suburban areas. Drug overdose deaths have reached a historical high and are devastating families and communities, and geography has historically played a role.
The study, titled “Geographic Trends in Opioid Overdoses in the US From 1999 to 2020,” examined geographic trends in opioid-involved overdose deaths between 1999 and 2020 to determine if geography played a key role in the three waves and theorized fourth wave of America’s opioid crisis, using data recorded in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s WONDER database.