Area county claims highest drug overdose rate of urban areas in state

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DAYTON — The city’s east side is the epicenter for Montgomery County’s accidental drug overdose epidemic, according to newly released county emergency room and coroner data.

Despite two years and $160,000 of publicly funded research, it’s still unclear why Montgomery County has an unusually high accidental overdose death rate of 23 per 100,000 people, twice that of other urban Ohio counties. But data from the county coroner’s office and hospitals are challenging some long-held beliefs about the county’s drug overdose epidemic.

Among the 61 people who died of accidental drug overdoses in the first half of this year, 90 percent were white. East Dayton is predominantly white, and it’s home to many people of Appalachian descent. The five counties with the highest accidental drug overdose death rates in Ohio in 2009 were Appalachian counties. Research sponsored by the state Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services has shown that Appalachians are among the groups more likely to abuse opiate painkillers.

“Virtually all of us pay for the problem, and the costs, whether human or financial, are not insignificant,” a report made public this month by Wright State University’s Center for Interventions, Treatment & Addictions Research (CITAR) concludes.

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