The drug overdose death rate among U.S. women aged 30 to 64 years old increased 260 percent between 1999 and 2017, to 24.3 per 100,000 people, according to data released yesterday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Overdose death rates increased for all drug categories examined, including a 1,643 percent increase for synthetic opioids, 915 percent increase for heroin and 830 percent increase for benzodiazepines. The average age at death increased by nearly three years to 46.3. “Prevention programs might need to shift response options as the overdose epidemic experiences demographic shifts,” the authors said. “Further, as women progress through life, individual experiences can change in the type of substance used or misused and in the experiences of pain that might result in an opioid prescription.”

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