Health

How many drug overdose deaths happen every year in New Hampshire?

Data updated July 19, 2024
486 overdose deaths in 2022. That means that for every 100,000 people living in New Hampshire, 35 died of drug overdose. This was the highest drug overdose death rate in the state since data became available in 1999.
Showing data for
In 2022,

35

per 100,000 people died of overdoses
In 2022,

486

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, New Hampshire had a drug overdose death rate higher than the US rate overall, nearly 10% higher. The drug overdose death rate in New Hampshire increased in 15 of the last 23 years in which data was available. The overdose death rate increased by 1% from 2018 to 2022 and increased 2.4 times from 2013 to 2022.

In 2022, New Hampshire had a drug overdose death rate higher than the US rate.

Drug-involved overdose deaths in New Hampshire, 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 85% of total overdose deaths in New Hampshire. The rates of drug overdose deaths involving fentanyl and methamphetamine had increased 19.4 and 3.5 times, respectively, between 2009 and 2022 for fentanyl and 2017 and 2022 for methamphetamine.

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

Drug-involved overdose deaths in New Hampshire, 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 New Hampshire ranged from 23 per 100,000 in Grafton County to 76 per 100,000 in Coos 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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