Drug Overdose Deaths

Preliminary death certificates, medical examiner reports, toxicology, and law enforcement reports are reviewed for each unintentional and undetermined overdose death that occurs in Delaware. From these data sources, variables of interest are collected and manually entered into the State Unintentional Drug Overdose Reporting System (SUDORS). Although the abstraction and entry processes are lengthy, SUDORS is considered the data source that best balances timelines and completeness as it is available to display on My Healthy Community within fifteen months after the date of death. SUDORS data are provided in six-month reporting periods after the close-out process with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which is up to eight months after the date of death. Prior to the resolution of the death certificate, SUDORS, provides timely estimates of unintentional overdose deaths occurring in Delaware.

SUDORS data are updated on this site approximately once per year.