More Valley residents dying from overdoses

April 30, 2015 at 4:55p.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

Mahoning and Trumbull county residents died from drug overdoses at a higher rate than residents statewide between 2008 and 2013, according to new data released by the Ohio Department of Health Thursday.

The state average between 2008 and 2013 was 15 drug overdose deaths per 100,000 residents; in Mahoning County that figure was 20.1 and in Trumbull County it was 21.8. Columbiana County had an average rate of 14.3 deaths.

“While Mahoning County has kind of stayed where we are, with 48 [drug overdose deaths] in 2012 and 41 in 2013, it’s still way too many deaths,” said Brenda Heidinger, associate director of the county mental health and recovery board.

“We have also gone from 19th in the state in 2012 to 14th in the state in [overdose deaths in] 2013, which concerns me and leads me to believe that we really need to educate people and look at alternatives to prevent these overdose deaths,” she said. “We’re just losing too many people.”

Although ODH data for Trumbull County shows a decrease in deaths — from 59 in 2011 to 36 in 2013 (the Trumbull County Coroner’s Office reports the 2013 number as 39 deaths) — the problem has since worsened, said April Caraway, executive director of the county mental health and recovery board.

“We thought we were doing better in 2012 and 2013, and now they’ve gone back up again,” she said. The coroner’s office reports 53 overdose deaths in 2014.