A recent study of 1,374 counties and county equivalents, almost half of the nation’s counties, found New Haven County to have a higher fatal overdose rate than any other high-income county in the country. Litchfield County was found to have the tenth-highest fatal overdose rate among high-income counties. On the other hand, Tolland County had the lowest fatality rate of any county studied.
Woodlands Grove Recovery Campus, an Ohio-based drug rehabilitation facility, compared counties’ overdose fatalities, using data from the CDC’s WONDER database, to counties’ median incomes, using data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Generally, the study’s findings were predictable; higher-income counties averaged much lower fatality rates than lower-income ones. But 11 of the country’s highest-income counties ranked as outliers, cracking into the nation’s 274 highest-fatality counties.
The study separated counties into quintiles for both income and fatality rate. The lowest-income, or first quintile, counties had median incomes of $31,354 to $58,154 per year, while the highest-income, or fifth quintile, counties had median incomes of $87,299 to $181,765 per year. The lowest-fatality, or first quintile, counties had rates of 2.9 to 20.7 fatalities per 100,000 people, while the highest-fatality, or fifth quintile, counties had rates of 46 to 217.8 fatalities per 100,000 people.
New Haven County was chief among these outliers, with the 65th-highest fatality rate of the 1,374 counties studied. The study collected overdose statistics from 2022-2024 and found New Haven County to have suffered 1,251 fatal overdoses during that timeframe, giving it an annual overdose rate of 72.3 per 100,000 people. The county’s rate was over twice the state’s average of 34.1, despite a median income of $88,197 per year, placing it in the fifth quintile for both income and fatalities.
Litchfield County had the 10th-highest fatality rate among the income outliers, with the 217th-highest overall fatality rate. The county suffered 171 fatalities over the study period, giving it a fatality rate of 50, despite having a median income of $93,551 per year.
None of the other nine highest-income, highest-fatality outliers were located in Connecticut; by fatality rate, Multnomah County, Oregon came in second place (72 fatality rate; median yearly income of $88,766), followed by Cheatham County, Tennessee (71.2; $89,852), San Francisco County, California (65.5; $140,970), Cecil County, Maryland (64.6; $92,007), Anchorage Borough, Alaska (63.9; $103,284), Washington D.C. (58.4; $109,870), El Paso County, Colorado (53.2; $90,363), and Camden County, New Jersey (51.4; $88,755). Coming in at 11th was New Castle County, Delaware (46.9; $91,000).
While New Haven and Litchfield Counties were the only two Connecticut counties to be both highest-income and highest-fatality counties, Windham County came close. Windham County recorded 133 deaths over the study period, with a fatality rate of 45.4. The County had the 290th-highest overall fatality rate, taking it 16 spots out of the fifth quintile and into the fourth, despite having a fifth-quintile median income of $90,589. Three other Connecticut counties fell in the fourth quintile for fatalities: New London County (343 deaths; 40.5 fatality rate), Fairfield County (731; 38.3), and Hartford County (1102; 37).
Both Fairfield County, with a median income of $128,188, and Hartford County, with a median income of $93,394, fell in the fifth income quintile. New London County, with a median income of $86,586, fell in the fourth quintile for both income and fatalities.
Connecticut’s two remaining counties, Middlesex and Tolland Counties, were the only two to follow the general high-income, low-fatality trend. Middlesex County recorded 136 deaths and had a fatality rate of 25.5, placing it in the second fatality quintile. Middlesex County had a median income of $104,428 per year, placing it among the first income quintile. Tolland County recorded 85 deaths and had a fatality rate of 2.9, recording the lowest fatality rate of any county included in the study. Tolland County has a median income of $93,394 per year, placing it among the fifth income quintile.
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