Number Data

 
Percent Used Opioids Chart.png
Life Affected Chart.png

Nearly one in five residents of the tri-county region report using opiates or opioids in the past year, and approximately half of residents say their life has been negatively affected by substance abuse.
(WNCHN – WNC Healthy Impact Community Health Survey, 2018)

  • The tri-county region has among the highest volume of opioid pills dispensed per person in the state.

    • In 2016, 105.1 opioid pills were dispensed per person in the tri-county region; this is 37 percent higher than the statewide opioid dispensing rate.
      (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Opioid Overdose, U.S. Opioid Prescribing Rate Maps, 2018)

  • In 2016 alone, total costs related to drug-related deaths in the tri-county region were $15,273,204.
    (NC DHHS, Injury and Violence Prevention Branch, County Overdose Slides, 2017)

  • Hepatitis C due to injected opiates has increased 900% statewide between 2007 and 2016, with the highest rates of increase in the western counties.
    (NC DHHS, Epidemiology, Communicable Disease, Hepatitis C, 2016)

  • Department of Social Services staff in all three counties say that substance use is a factor in the vast majority of cases in which a child is removed from a home and placed in foster care.
    (AMCHC, 2019)

To learn more about substance misuse in Western North Carolina, visit:
https://www.wnchn.org/wnc-data/substance-misuse-2/