Saving lives and protecting people : preventing prescription painkiller overdoses

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (U.S.)
• Description:
  Overdose deaths have skyrocketed in the past decade, largely because of prescription ; painkillers. The stories are tragic: A father whose addiction to prescription painkillers ended in a fatal overdose. A teen who died after taking prescription painkillers stolen from a friend’s grandmother. Seven members of one community who overdosed on painkillers they got from a pain clinic. ; Overdoses of prescription painkillers have more than tripled in the past 20 years, leading to 14,800 deaths in the United States in 2008. ; Overdose deaths are only part of the problem—for each death involving prescription painkillers (also called opioid or narcotic pain relievers), hundreds of people abuse or misuse these drugs: ; • Emergency department visits for prescription painkiller abuse or misuse have doubled in the past 5 years to nearly half a million. ; • About 12 million American teens and adults reported using prescription painkillers to get “high” or for other nonmedical reasons. ; • Nonmedical use of prescription painkillers costs more than $72.5 billion each year in direct health care costs. ; Publication date from document properties. ; ncipc_factsheets_ppo_v7.pdf
• Subjects:
  • Drug Overdose
  • Pain Management/methods
  • Prescription Drugs
• Document Type:
  Pamphlet (or booklet)
• Genre:
  Fact Sheet
• Pages in Document:
  2 unnumbered pages
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/50338/cdc_50338_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 389.34 KB]
• Collection(s):
  Stephen B. Thacker CDC Library
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:5d75e2be6f5885b50bfa481af3fdbf4c66044d6a34af7e593ec7740a708479690be581c017b85b0f7f8586678283ae10fd7b98cc1d50ab00d1c1bcd4f35b0de0