School of Public and Population Health Assistant Professor Vinita Sharma was recently interviewed for the Idaho Press article: “Who is most at risk of a fentanyl overdose? Here’s what the data tells us.”
The article shares that nearly 200 Idahoans died in 2022 from a drug death where fentanyl was present in their system. Just five years earlier in 2017, 13 drug deaths involved fentanyl, according to data from the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare.
IDHW’s data shows that men are more likely to overdose with fentanyl in their system than women. Those who died worked in many various sectors.
Sharma said that she sees the data as being indicative of how widespread fentanyl use is.
“Fentanyl use is a public health problem of epidemic proportions,” Sharma says in the article.
Read more to learn about the most recent data on this topic from the Idaho Press.