Overdose Deaths among Franklin County Residents
The most serious outcome for an accidental overdose is death. When a person overdoses on a drug and dies within Franklin County, the death of that person will be investigated by the Franklin County Coroner's Office in order to capture as much information about that person as possible. This includes information such as date and time of death, demographic and location data, final cause of death, and a full record of all drugs present in that person's system at their time of death. During this investigation, investigators will also note whether the death was accidental/unintentional or intentional.
Additional information about overdose death data
After the Coroner's Office investigation, information about the person and the circumstances of their death is passed to the Ohio Department of Health (ODH), which combines all of this data into a formal death certificate. During this process, ODH will add more information about the person, using access to state systems. ODH provides access to data on deaths among Franklin County residents to Franklin County Public Health, enabling staff to analyze this data to find ways to prevent similar, future deaths from occurring.
The data in this dashboard shows all deaths due to accidental drug overdose among Franklin County residents since 2007. Overdose deaths determined to be intentional suicides are not included. Data from 2007 to 2021 is taken from Ohio Department of Health's vital statistics system, and captures deaths among all Franklin County residents, regardless of where the actual death occurred. Data for 2022 is sourced from the Franklin County Coroner's Office, and only contains information on resident deaths that occurred within Franklin County. Because of this, this data source may underestimate the total number of resident deaths. This data can be used to look at how overdose deaths have changed over time, see which groups and locations have been most heavily affected, and check patterns in drug combinations of interest.