Farr’s Law Forecast Drug Overdose Mortality in the United States

Accidents due to drug overdose has increased markedly over the past two decades and is the leading cause of injury mortality.

In the past two decades unintentional drug overdose has increased markedly and surpassed motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of injury mortality in many states.

A recent study was done to understand the route of the drug overdose epidemic in the United States by applying Farr’s Law.

Drug Abuse | Drug Addiction | Substance Abuse - Overview
The use of Drugs for reasons other than its prescribed recommendation, is known as Drug abuse or substance abuse. Drug abuse or substance abuse is initiated by various biological and social factors.

Farr’s "law of epidemics" and the Bregman-Langmuir back calculation method were applied to United States drug overdose mortality data for the years 1980 through 2011 to project the annual death rates from drug overdose from 2012 through 2035.

Annual drug overdose mortality increased from 2.7 to 13.2 deaths per 100,000 population from 1980–2011.

The projected drug overdose mortality would peak in 2016–2017 at 16.1 deaths per 100,000 population and then decline progressively until reaching 1.9 deaths per 100,000 population in 2035.

Impact of Drug Abuse on Health and Society
Drug abuse is a negative social trend that pushes youth to drug addiction in the pretext of getting psychological effects like excitation.

Approximately by the year 2034, the projected data based on Farr’s Law suggests that drug overdose mortality in the United States will decline in the coming years and return to the 1980 baseline level.

Source-Medindia

International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking
To marshal worldwide support for the control of drugs, the 26th of June every year is devoted to the cause, known as the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking.