Leveraging state drug overdose data to build a comprehensive case level national dataset to inform prevention and mitigation strategies.

We will leverage data from individual states via data sharing agreements because the data do not exist at the federal level. While we have access to restricted CDC data for the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) at the case level, these data only account for 6% of opioid overdose deaths.9-11 We must obtain and merge the NVDRS with the Statewide Unintentional Drug Overdose Reporting System (SUDORS) to account for the remaining 94% of opioid overdose deaths.9-11 Specifically, we will merge intentional opioid overdose deaths (suicide and homicide) with unknown intent and unintentional (accidental) opioid overdose deaths. NVDRS and SUDORS contain decedent information from death certificates, police reports, toxicology reports, and medical examiner reports at the case level. This combination of data has never been integrated nor mined at this granular level of detail, nor have the SUDORS data been available for comparative analysis across multiple states. Moreover, these datasets include non-opioid drug overdose deaths and suicides by non-opioid poisoning for comparison purposes. This study will produce high impact results because, for the first time, we will understand what happened to individuals before they died and why. The study allows us to link individual experiences to opioid overdose deaths, which is unprecedented at a national level. We cannot inform prevention and mitigation strategies without these data.