Survey Finds Almost One-Third of U.S. Adults Know Someone Who Died of Overdose

A new survey finds that almost one in three adult Americans know someone who has died of an overdose, CBS News reports.

The survey found 32% of adults said someone they knew died from a fatal overdose, and 18.9% said the person they knew who died was a family member or close friend. More than 100,000 people die from an overdose each year in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the majority from synthetic opioids such as fentanyl.

The survey found 40% of lower-income respondents (defined as annual household incomes less than $30,000) reported overdose loss, compared with 26% of respondents in the $100,000 and higher annual household income category.

“This study contributes new evidence that the addiction crisis and the losses that come with it are common across Americans, but the burden is greater among those who are more economically precarious,” researcher Catherine Ettman, PhD of the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School’s Department of Health Policy and Management, said in a news release. “Addressing addiction can be a unifying theme in increasingly divided times.”