NC Fentanyl Statistics

NC Fentanyl Statistics 2013-2023

13,376 Fentanyl Positive Deaths in North Carolina*^

Year	# of fentanyl positive deaths^	Difference from preveious year	% Increase from previous year
2013	111		1st year of records
2014	212	101	91%
2015	300	88	42%
2016	442	142	47%
2017	936	494	112%
2018	1,229	293	31%
2019	1,490	261	21%
2020	2,426	936	63%
2021	3,168	742	31%
2022^*	3,354	186	6%
2023^*	3324	-30	-1%
	16,992

Data sources:

North Carolina State Center for Health Statistics, Vital Statistics Death Certificate Data
North Carolina Office of Chief Medical Examiner (NC OCME)
North Carolina State Center for Health Statistics, Vital Statistics Death Certificate Data (2020-2021*)

Analysis by: North Carolina Division of Public Health Injury and Violence Prevention Branch Epidemiology, Surveillance & Informatics Unit  

*2023 data are provisional and subject to change 

^There is no individual code for fentanyl involvement on a death certificate; instead, the code T40.4 – an overdose involving another synthetic narcotic is used as a proxy for fentanyl-involvement.
Fentanyl gets coded using the ‘other’ synthetic narcotic code, but there may be other drugs included in this category, however, we know from toxicology data that the majority of deaths receiving this code involved fentanyl.