DEMOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION OF THE EPIDEMIC

What factors gave rise to the Opioid Epidemic? Was there any demographic that was majorly contributing to the number of prescriptions and the death rate? Did economy play a major role in this epidemic?

Let's find out.

In the above chart, we have analyzed prescription data for the year of 2017. The major conclusions we can arrive on based on looking at the numbers are -

• Opioids have been consistently prescribed throughout all age groups. The number increases as the age group increases because of the need of opioids - acting as pain killers increases as we grow older.

• Across all the age groups, a common trend has been followed that Females have been prescribed more Opioids than Males.

The chart below represents a relationship between the unemployment rate with respect to the total number of deaths due to drug overdose.

The unemployment rate is derived by the rate in multiple counties across the United States of America for years of 2011 to 2019.

From the plot we can observe that as the unemployment rate increased, the number of deaths increased up-to the rate of 5.1.

The highest number of deaths came from counties with un-employment rates between 4 and 6.

The trend of the number of deaths consistently keeps decreasing after the un-employment rate crosses a mark of 6.

The chart below represents a relationship between the average income for different counties with respect to the total number of deaths due to drug overdose.

The average income constitutes the average income of different counties across the United States of America for the years of 2011 to 2019.

From the above scatter plot we see that the highest concentration of deaths occurred between the average income range of 50,000 to 100,000.

As the average income increased, the total number of deaths occurred observed a significant drop.

Below is a time-series heat map representing the death rate due to opioid over-dose across different states in the United States of America for the years 1999 to 2019

The maximum death rate which was 10.2 in 1999 has increased by 4.2 times to 43 in 2019.

The minimum death rate which was 0.7 in 1999 has increased by 5 times to 3.5 in 2019.

The State of Wisconsin has been a state with one of the highest death rate and has been the STATE WITH THE HIGHEST DEATH RATE since the year of 2010 consistently.