DATA STORY
Unintentional drug overdose death rate by race or ethnicity
Unintentional drug overdose death rates by race or ethnicity in San Francisco by year.
Department of Public HealthUnintentional overdose death rate by race or ethnicity and year
The chart below shows the rate of unintentional drug overdose deaths by race or ethnicity in San Francisco by year. If all race or ethnicity groups were impacted at the same rate, each death rate would equal the death rate for the total population. When a race or ethnicity group has a higher death rate than the total population, they are more affected. The visual shows that the Black/African American community has been most disproportionately affected by the overdose crisis compared to other racial or ethnic groups and the overall San Francisco population.
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Data notes and sources
The death rate is the total number of deaths in each race or ethnicity group divided by the number of SF residents in that group and multiplied by 100,000. There was a total of 606 confirmed unintentional fatal drug overdoses in 2024, 805 in 2023, 635 in 2022, 623 in 2021, and 698 in 2020. These totals only include deaths that involved cocaine, opioids, or methamphetamine.
- These rates are calculated using finalized death records from the State of California which differ from the Preliminary Unintentional Overdose Death dataset from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. More information on the differences between these sources is available here. The State data are also published in the Annual Substance Use Trends report from the Center on Substance Use and Health.
- We calculate population rates using estimates from the US Census Bureau for 2023. We categorize Asian, Black/African American, and White as non-Hispanic. Latine/Hispanic includes people of all races. Other racial groups and people with unknown race or ethnicity are included in the “All races” category.
- Overdose data are updated each fall.