Unintentional or Undetermined Drug Overdose Deaths

Unintentional or undetermined drug overdose death rates per 100,000 and deaths, by Georgia county, 2019-2024 (CDC MIOV).

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Mapping Injury, Overdose, and Violence (MIOV), county dataset (data.cdc.gov psx4-wq38), based on National Center for Health Statistics National Vital Statistics System death records, as retrieved 2026-10-24; final annual data as of 2026-05-14
Year coverage: 2019–2024
Updated: annual
Version: 1.0.0
Schema hash: 60815cc0b3ff

Detail levels available

County · default

Overview

Unintentional or undetermined drug overdose deaths among the residents of each of Georgia's 159 counties, 2019-2024: CDC's crude death rate per 100,000 residents (the observed rate, or an estimate from CDC's Bayesian model with its 95% credible interval where the county had 1-9 deaths) and the number of deaths, from CDC's Mapping Injury, Overdose, and Violence (MIOV) dashboard (National Vital Statistics System death records). Counts of 1-9 are withheld by CDC.

Row grain: One row per year, county_fips, tract_geoid.

Key metric

death_rate_per_100k — Unintentional or Undetermined Overdose Death Rate (per 100,000) (rate_per_population)

The single headline value most answers want.

JSON schema →Data contract (YAML) →

Variables

Every column in the fact table. The code is the exact field name the API returns.

Column	Type	Unit	Range	Null?	Description
`year`Year	integer	—	—	no	Calendar year of death (2019-2024), final as CDC publishes it. CDC's provisional trailing 12 months (April 2025 to March 2026) are not included. Full description▾ Calendar year of death (2019-2024), final as CDC publishes it. CDC's provisional trailing 12 months (April 2025 to March 2026) are not included.
`county_fips`County FIPS	string	—	—	no	5-digit county FIPS code as published (FK to the counties dimension): the decedent's county of residence. Every row is a county; CDC publishes no Georgia total in this dataset. Full description▾ 5-digit county FIPS code as published (FK to the counties dimension): the decedent's county of residence. Every row is a county; CDC publishes no Georgia total in this dataset. Joins counties; adds its label columns.
`tract_geoid`Tract GEOID	string	—	—	yes	Always NULL: this dataset is by county. Kept for the health domain's standard key shape. Full description▾ Always NULL: this dataset is by county. Kept for the health domain's standard key shape. Joins tracts; adds its label columns.
`death_rate_per_100k`Unintentional or Undetermined Overdose Death Rate (per 100,000)	number	rate_per_population	—	yes	Unintentional or undetermined drug overdose deaths per 100,000 residents a year (crude); an estimate from CDC's model where the county had 1-9 deaths. Full description▾ Unintentional or undetermined drug overdose deaths per 100,000 residents of the county in the year, crude (all ages, not age-adjusted), as CDC publishes it (rounded to 0.1). With 0 or 10 or more deaths it is the observed rate (deaths / population x 100,000; 0 with no deaths). With 1 to 9 deaths it is an estimate from CDC's Bayesian model, which borrows strength from neighboring counties to steady small counts and protect privacy (rate_modeled true), with a 95% credible interval: not deaths / population, and never 0. Rates never add or average across counties, and no population is published to weight them. The highest is 76.4 (Crisp County, 13081, 2023: 15 deaths), preserved as published.
`death_rate_per_100k_ci_lower`Modeled Rate 95% Credible Interval Lower Bound	number	rate_per_population	—	yes	Lower bound of the 95% credible interval of death_rate_per_100k, as CDC publishes it, for modeled rates only (rate_modeled true): under CDC's model, the true rate lies in the interval with 95% probability. Wide for small counties. The interval belongs to CDC's model estimate (rate_modeled true), not to an observed rate. Full description▾ Lower bound of the 95% credible interval of death_rate_per_100k, as CDC publishes it, for modeled rates only (rate_modeled true): under CDC's model, the true rate lies in the interval with 95% probability. Wide for small counties. The interval belongs to CDC's model estimate (rate_modeled true), not to an observed rate.
`death_rate_per_100k_ci_upper`Modeled Rate 95% Credible Interval Upper Bound	number	rate_per_population	—	yes	Upper bound of the 95% credible interval of death_rate_per_100k, as CDC publishes it, for modeled rates only (rate_modeled true). The interval belongs to CDC's model estimate (rate_modeled true), not to an observed rate. Full description▾ Upper bound of the 95% credible interval of death_rate_per_100k, as CDC publishes it, for modeled rates only (rate_modeled true). The interval belongs to CDC's model estimate (rate_modeled true), not to an observed rate.
`num_deaths`Deaths	integer	count	—	yes	Number of unintentional or undetermined drug overdose deaths among residents of the county in the year, as CDC publishes it: 0, or 10 and more; CDC withholds 1 to 9 (NULL here, rate_modeled true). A published 0 is a real zero. Adds across counties only where none is NULL, so a sum over counties with a NULL is an undercount: there is no Georgia total in this dataset. Not every drug overdose death: CDC's measure leaves out drug suicides and assaults (see limitations). Full description▾ Number of unintentional or undetermined drug overdose deaths among residents of the county in the year, as CDC publishes it: 0, or 10 and more; CDC withholds 1 to 9 (NULL here, rate_modeled true). A published 0 is a real zero. Adds across counties only where none is NULL, so a sum over counties with a NULL is an undercount: there is no Georgia total in this dataset. Not every drug overdose death: CDC's measure leaves out drug suicides and assaults (see limitations).
`rate_modeled`Rate Is Modeled	boolean	—	—	no	True when the rate is CDC's model estimate (1-9 deaths, count withheld). Full description▾ CDC's modeled-rate flag (rate_m): true where the county had 1 to 9 deaths, so num_deaths is withheld and death_rate_per_100k is an estimate from CDC's Bayesian model with a 95% credible interval (rate and interval NULL where CDC flags the modeled rate as unstable and does not publish it, -999 in the source); false where the rate is observed (0 or 10 or more deaths). Describes the row, not part of its key.

Filters

Query parameters the fact endpoint accepts. Comma-separated values are OR within a parameter; multiple parameters AND together.

Parameter	Kind	Allowed values	Notes
`year`	year_exact	any value	—
`year_min`	year_range	any value	—
`year_max`	year_range	any value	—
`detail`	detail	`counties`	enum-enforced, default: counties
`county_fips`	foreign_key	any value	multi-value
`tract_geoid`	foreign_key	any value	multi-value
`rate_modeled`	categorical	any value	multi-value

Example requests

Run these against the base URL — they return live data.

All rows (first page), counties level

curl "https://georgiacivicdata.org/api/v1/health/overdose_deaths"

counties data for 2024

curl "https://georgiacivicdata.org/api/v1/health/overdose_deaths?year=2024"

One county (FIPS 13121), 2024

curl "https://georgiacivicdata.org/api/v1/health/overdose_deaths?county_fips=13121&year=2024&detail=counties"

Download 2024 as CSV

curl "https://georgiacivicdata.org/api/v1/health/overdose_deaths?year=2024&format=csv"

Notes & limitations

NULL handling

Suppressed cells (values the source withholds, usually for a group too small to report) are NULL, never zero.
Zero is a real, reported value.

Limitations

Unintentional or undetermined drug overdose deaths only, by county of residence: not every drug overdose death. Counties with 1 to 9 deaths get a CDC model estimate in place of an observed rate (rate_modeled true), so many county rates are estimates. Georgia DPH's OASIS drug overdose deaths also count drug suicides and assaults, and the two sources process death records separately, so the counts differ: usually a little lower here (Fulton 2024: 222 here, 229 in OASIS) but not always (Fulton 2021: 263 here, 255 in OASIS). Never compare the two head to head or mix them in one series. Where a county had 1 to 9 deaths CDC withholds the count (shown as '1-9': num_deaths NULL, never a zero, never backed out of a total) and publishes instead an estimate from its Bayesian model, which borrows strength from neighboring counties (rate_modeled true), with a 95% credible interval; a modeled rate is not deaths divided by population, and where CDC flags the modeled rate as unstable and does not publish it (-999 in the source) the rate and interval are NULL. 61% of county-years had 1-9 deaths (a modeled estimate, or no rate on 30). So county counts do not add up to a Georgia total (no statewide row is published, and none is built here), and rates cannot be pooled or averaged across counties from this table: no population is published, and modeled estimates are not deaths divided by population. Rates are crude (deaths per 100,000 residents of all ages), not age-adjusted, so places with older or younger populations are not directly comparable. Final annual data as of 2026-05-14. Not included: CDC's provisional trailing 12 months (April 2025 to March 2026), which CDC revises and rolls forward monthly; every row here is a calendar year. CDC's measure counts deaths whose intent was unintentional or undetermined (its cause-of-death codes are in CDC's data dictionary, not in this source file). OASIS's case definition (underlying cause X40-X44, X60-X64, X85, Y10-Y14) adds intentional self-poisoning and assault by drugs, and OASIS publishes age-adjusted rates, drug types (opioids, fentanyl, heroin, methadone) and demographics, with final calendar 2025. No drug types, demographics or nonfatal overdose visits in this table. tract_geoid is always NULL.