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In 2017, among 70,237 drug overdose deaths, 47,600 (67.8%) involved opioids, with increases across age groups, racial/ethnic groups, county urbanization levels, and in multiple states. From 2013 to 2017, synthetic opioids contributed to increases in drug overdose death rates in several states. From 2016 to 2017, synthetic opioid-involved overdose death rates increased 45.2%.
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Scholl et al. (2018) studied this question.
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