A recent article in STAT leads off with several paragraphs copied and pasted below. How should we think about these statistics? What should we do about them? What lessons can we draw from them?
Overdose deaths have fallen for six months. Is it temporary or a sign of a corner turned?
The number of fatal drug overdoses nationwide has fallen for six consecutive months, fueling hopes that the downturn marks not just a reprieve but a long-lasting shift in the tide of the addiction crisis.
Annual U.S. drug overdoses have been tracking upward for nearly four decades, and the rate of growth increased sharply in the last few years with the onset of the opioid epidemic.
But in the 12-month period ending in March 2018 — the most recent span for which data are available — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a decline of 2.8 percent in the number of overdose deaths, to an estimated 71,073 people, compared with the 12 months ending in September 2017.
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