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QuickStats: Age-Adjusted Drug Overdose Death Rates* Among Workers Aged 16–64 Years in Usual Occupation† Groups with the Highest Drug Overdose Death Rates — National Vital Statistics System, United States,§ 2020
Weekly / July 22, 2022 / 71(29);948
* Age-adjusted death rates are per 100,000 standard population. Deaths from drug overdoses were classified using International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision codes X40–X44, X60–X64, X85, and Y10–Y14. The denominators for these rates are paid, civilian worker populations aged 16–64 years in each usual occupation group, estimated using the April 2020 vintage population in the Current Population Survey Basic Monthly Public Use Microdata Custom Table generator.
† The U.S. Standard Certificate of Death records usual occupation, or the occupation in which the decedent spent most of their working life, as a free-text narrative. Usual occupation narratives were coded to standardized 2012 Census Occupation Codes, then collapsed into 22 broad occupation groups. Decedents with unpaid or military usual occupations were excluded.
§ Occupation data for deaths among 46 states and New York City; data not available for Arizona, Iowa, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia.
In 2020, the age-adjusted drug overdose death rate among workers with paid, civilian usual occupations was 42.1 deaths per 100,000. Drug overdose death rates were highest among workers in the following occupations: construction and extraction (162.6); food preparation and serving related (117.9); personal care and service (74.0); transportation and material moving (70.7); building and grounds cleaning and maintenance (70.0); and installation, maintenance, and repair (69.9).
Source: National Vital Statistics System, Mortality Data. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/deaths.htm
Reported by: Rachael M. Billock, PhD, qlf9@cdc.gov, 513-458-7116; Andrea L. Steege, PhD; Arialdi Miniño, MPH.
For more information on this topic, CDC recommends the following links: https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/deaths/index.html and https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/opioids/default.html
Suggested citation for this article: QuickStats: Age-Adjusted Drug Overdose Death Rates Among Workers Aged 16–64 Years in Usual Occupation Groups with the Highest Drug Overdose Death Rates — National Vital Statistics System, United States, 2020. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2022;71:948. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7129a5.
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