Using multiple cause-of-death data to improve surveillance of drug-related mortality.

ABSTRACT:

Context

Many states and local areas are affected by the national epidemic of drug-related mortality, which recently has shown signs of a rising "licit-to-illicit drug" death ratio. Appropriate local public health surveillance can help monitor and control this epidemic.

Objective

Using our state as an example, we sought to illustrate how to describe the changes in drug death rates, causes, and circumstances. In contrast to most other surveillance reports, our approach includes both drug-induced and drug-related deaths as well as both demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of decedents.

Design

Cross-sectional study.

Setting

All residents of the state of Wisconsin.

Participants

Decedents from 1999 to 2008.

Main outcome measure

Annual numbers a

SUBMITTER: Nordstrom DL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4594873 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Sep-Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature