Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Deaths due to prescription painkillers and heroin have quickly become national,
state, and local public health concerns. Studies using data from Medical Examiners or
Coroner Offices throughout the United States have been conducted and are contributing
to the understanding of this epidemic. However, the analysis of these fatalities are
specific to the communities where the study was conducted and cannot be assumed that
the decedents in one community are similar to decedents in another community. Many
local governments and agencies throughout the U.S. are aware that this problem exists in
their communities, but are not prepared to adequately respond to and intervene in these
fatalities as an analysis of those who have died has rarely been conducted. This
dissertation is a replication study of longitudinal epidemiological analyses of opiate
related fatalities that was implemented in a location where an analysis of opiate-related
fatalities had not been conducted, Marion County, Indiana. The purpose of the
dissertation was twofold: (1) to describe the demographic characteristics of the decedents
using publicly available data from the Marion County Coroner’s Office to be used in
informing future preventative efforts to decrease opiate-related fatalities in Marion
County and (2) to inform other communities on how to conduct a similar analysis in their
own community.
This dissertation describes the methods of the replication study, provides
descriptive results of the people who died from opiate-related overdoses, and: (a) Report the types of opiates identified in blood toxicology reports and (b) Present the histories of
opiate-related decedents as reported in the Deputy Coroner Field Officer’s Reports
(DCFOR). Additionally, analysis was conducted to determine if decedent characteristics
deferred depending on the type of opiate fatality based on the toxicology in 1) heroin
alone, 2) painkillers alone, and 3) heroin and painkillers combined.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:IUPUI/oai:scholarworks.iupui.edu:1805/14785 |
| Date | 08 August 2017 |
| Creators | Willis, Aaron Carl |
| Contributors | Lay, Kathy, Zimet, Gregory Z., Adamek, Margaret E., Hall, James A., Hensel, Devon J. |
| Source Sets | Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
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