Opioid overdose deaths may be undercounted by 70,000

(NBC News, June 27) Since 1999, as many as 70,000 people may have died from opioid overdoses, but weren’t added to the national opioid overdose death toll, according to a new report from researchers at the University of Pittsburgh.

The undercounting was due to some states classifying drug overdose deaths too broadly, according to the study entitled “The Effect of Incomplete Death Certificates on Estimates of Unintentional Opioid-Related Overdose Deaths in the United States, 1999-2015.”  Read more.