Opioids, Car Crashes and Falling: The Odds of Dying in the U.S.

Patricia Mazzei 02:20 - 15 January 2019

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The opioid crisis in the United States has become so grim that Americans are now likelier to die of an overdose than in a vehicle crash.

That’s according to a new report by the National Safety Council that analyzed the causes of preventable deaths in the country in 2017. The probability of dying from an opioid overdose, according to the report, is 1 in 96. The chances of dying in a vehicle crash? One in 103.

Most Americans are still most likely to die of natural causes, chiefly heart disease (a 1 in 6 chance) or cancer (1 in 7). But the report shows that everyday events — such as falling down — might be effectively more dangerous than rare ones, such as getting hit by lightning.

“Human beings, we just are not good at estimating our own risk,” said Ken Kolosh, manager of statistics at the National Safety Council, who oversaw the report. “We tend to fixate or focus on the rare, startling event, like a plane crash or a major flood or a natural disaster, but in reality, when you look at the numbers, the everyday risks that we face and have become so accustomed to form a much greater hazard.”

While deaths from natural causes have gone down, deaths from preventable causes have ticked up, and the result is that Americans’ life expectancy has actually decreased over the past few years, Kolosh said.

The total number of deaths from opioid overdoses first surpassed the total number of deaths from vehicle crashes years ago. But the report found that 2017 was the first year in which accidental opioid deaths exceeded the number of accidental vehicle crashes.

Overdoses of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, have been driving the increase, according to data on opioid deaths from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Top 10 Odds of Dying:

— Heart disease: 1 in six

— Cancer: 1 in seven