June 4, 2025
Stories this photo appears in:
Majority of Youth Overdose Deaths from 2018 to 2022 Were Driven by Fentanyl Alone
Fatal drug overdoses among youth aged 15 to 24 in the United States involving synthetic opioids alone—not mixed with other substances—soared by 168 percent over the five-year time period of 2018 to 2022, a new study shows. Published online today in the journal Pediatrics, the work also found that youth overdose rates and drug combinations varied significantly across age, sex and race/ethnicity.