The death rates associated with the opioid crisis are so staggering that they can be difficult to comprehend through statistics alone. According to New York State and City health department data, at least 4,181 people died from opioid overdoses in the state in 2020—a per capita rate of 20.7 per 100,000. To put that into perspective, this annual rate has more than quadrupled in a decade.
More than any other region, the Hudson Valley and Catskills have disproportionately borne the burden of the crisis. Sullivan County’s opioid overdose death rate was triple that of the rest of the state in 2020. While the Department of Health’s data for 2020 are still preliminary, opioid overdose is a chronically undercounted phenomenon.
Read the article in The River.
