Health

How many drug overdose deaths happen every year in California?

Data updated July 19, 2024
10,952 overdose deaths in 2022. That means that for every 100,000 people living in California, 28 died of drug overdose. This was the highest the drug overdose death rate has been in the state since data from 1999 became available.
Showing data for
In 2022,

28

per 100,000 people died of overdoses
In 2022,

11.0K

people died of overdoses
Unadjusted data about the nation is a useful starting point, but age-adjusted data tells a more complete story. Age-adjusting accounts for differences in age distributions across populations, which is crucial when comparing health outcomes since age is a major risk factor for many conditions. This adjustment enables fairer comparisons of mortality rates between different groups or over time. The rest of the data on this page is age-adjusted.
In 2022, California had a drug overdose death rate 17% lower than the US rate overall. The drug overdose death rate in California increased in 15 of the last 23 years for which data is available. The overdose death rate has increased 2.1 times since 2018 and 2.4 times since 2013.

In 2022, California had a drug overdose death rate lower than the US rate.

Drug-involved overdose deaths in California, age-adjusted rate per 100,000 people

The rise in drug overdose deaths nationally has been due to growing use of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, however, this may vary by state. In 2022, fentanyl and other synthetic opioids were involved in more overdose deaths than any other drug, making up 59% of total overdose deaths in California. The rates of drug overdose deaths involving fentanyl and methamphetamine increased 54.7 and 20.3 times, respectively, between 1999 and 2022.

In 2022, fentanyl was involved in more overdose deaths than any other drug.

Drug-involved overdose deaths in California, age-adjusted rate per 100,000 people

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Although drug overdose deaths are on the rise, they affect geographic areas differently. In 2022, the death rate for overdoses in California ranged from 16 per 100,000 in San Mateo County to 107 per 100,000 in Del Norte County.
Occasionally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will mark data as either suppressed or unreliable. Suppression occurs when data does not meet confidentiality requirements. As a result, data may not be available for every county in this state. Age-adjusted data is also not available at the county level. County-level tables reflect the most recent year of available data.

Drug-involved overdose deaths per 100,000 people (2022)

Drug-involved overdose deaths per 100,000 people (2022)

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