Drug Overdose Death Rate by State 2025

What this chart shows. Drug overdose deaths per 100,000 people in each state and DC in 2025. The District of Columbia had the highest rate, 51.0, followed by New Mexico at 45.2 and Alaska at 44.9. Nebraska had the lowest, 7.2, and the US rate was 20.7.

How the data is collected. The counts come from provisional death certificate data that the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) at the CDC publishes every month, here for the 12 months ending December 2025. The rate is our own calculation: CDC's count divided by the Bureau of Economic Analysis 2025 population estimate. It is a crude rate, not age-adjusted, so it differs from the age-adjusted rates CDC publishes.

Background. The rate in DC was 7.1 times Nebraska's. West Virginia was fifth, at 38.6.

Limits. Provisional counts are tabulated by the state where the death occurred and include foreign residents, while final figures are by state of residence; for 2024 the provisional total was 80,860 and the final one 79,384. The deaths are counted where they happened but divided by the resident population, which can raise the rate in places many people visit.