Per Person Costs from Opioid Use Disorder and Deaths Highest in West Virginia

A new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) finds West Virginia had the highest costs per person due to opioid use disorder and deaths in 2017.

Per capita combined costs varied from $1,204 in Hawaii to $7,247 in West Virginia, the CDC found. States with high per capita combined costs were located mainly in the Ohio Valley and New England.

Approximately 47,000 people in the United States died from an opioid-related overdose in 2018, and 2 million people met the diagnostic criteria for an opioid use disorder in 2017, the CDC said.

The economic cost of the U.S. opioid epidemic in 2017 was estimated at more than $1 trillion, including the cost of opioid use disorder ($471 billion) and the cost of fatal opioid overdoses ($550 billion). Costs ranged from $985 million in Wyoming to $72 billion in Ohio. Costs of opioid use disorder and fatal overdoses include health care, substance use treatment, criminal justice, lost productivity, reduced quality of life and the value of statistical life lost.