Assessment of Drug-Related Deaths in Connecticut

Drug Related Deaths is a significant public health issue and Connecticut is a state with statistically significant increase in drug overdose death rates fram 2016 to 2017. Our motivation for this project is to analyze and report on Connecticut’s local geogographic and demographic trends related to drug overdose deaths in recent years.

Accidental drug-related deaths are an ongoing public health concern at a national level, with a significant increase in the state of Connecticut in particular. Opioid overdose deaths within this state have doubled over the past six years. The Connecticut Department of Health has attributed the increase to the recreational use of a combination of multiple drugs at one time.

The analysis, conclusions, and suggestions for intervention from this asessement are theoretically crafted to further supplement Connecticut Department of Public Health’s work to understand and combat the rise in drug-related deaths in the State.

Dataset

For this assessment, the Accidental Drug Related Deaths 2012-2018 dataset was utilized. This data was originally derived from an investigation by the state of Connecticut’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner which includes the toxicity report, death certificate, as well as a scene investigation.

Website Overview

Visualizations: Graphs depicting demographic and geographic correlates of drug-Related Deaths in Connecticut

Map of Drug Related Deaths: Maps depicting the distribution of deaths at different location types

Project Report: Report describing the findings from the data analysis and visualizations

Screencast: The screencast added here provides a brief overview of our website

Contributers: Connie Zhang, Laura Lynch, Rachel Crowley, Ekta Chaudhary, Tianna Ouyang