Overdose Death Urbanicity Graphs
The figures below show the changes in age-adjusted death rates involving prescription opioids by urbanization classification of residence from year to year.
- Large central metro—Counties in metropolitan statistical areas of 1 million or more population that:
- Contain the entire population of the largest principal city
- Have their entire population contained in the largest principal city
- Contain at least 250,000 inhabitants of any principal city
- Large fringe metro—Counties of 1 million or more population that did not qualify as large central metro counties.
- Medium metro—Counties of populations of 250,000 to 999,999.
- Small metro—Counties of populations less than 250,000.
- Micropolitan—Counties in micropolitan statistical areas that have a population of at least 10,000 but less than 50,000.
- Noncore—Nonmetropolitan counties that did not qualify as micropolitan.
Categories of 2013 NCHS Urban-Rural Classification Scheme for Counties (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/urban_rural.htm)
County Urbanization Level | 2016 Rate | 2017 Rate |
United States | 5.2 | 5.2 |
Large Central Metro | 4.7 | 4.7 |
Large Fringe Metro | 5.2 | 5.2 |
Medium Metro | 6 | 5.9 |
Small Metro | 5.2 | 5.2 |
Micropolitan | 5.7 | 5.6 |
Noncore | 5.7 | 5.3 |
Page last reviewed: March 19, 2020