Accidental injuries are now the third leading cause of death in the US

For the first time in US history, accidental injuries have become the third leading cause of death in America after cancer and heart disease.

According to the most recent statistics, 161,374 people died from unintentional injuries in 2016 in the US. 190,8038 died from cancer and 635,260 died from heart disease in the US in 2016. Accidental injuries rose by 10% in 2016. This represents 14,803 more people dying in 2016 than in 2015. The largest yearly increases in accidental injuries since 1936. Every second an American suffers an accidental injury and every 3 minutes one of them dies from one.

It consists mostly of opioid drug overdoses predominantly from prescription painkillers. in the US more than 100 people die everyday from opioid drugs for a total of 37,873 a year. Most of these deaths are from prescription opioid medicine. Opioids pain killers are extremely addictive and many Americans who started to use pain killers after an injury developed an addiction that lead them to take more and more drugs and ultimately killed them. Others became so addicted that they switch to heroin. Preventable opiod overdose death increased by 29% between 2015 and 2016. From 1999 to 2016 it increased by 544%

For the first time on record the odds of dying from a drug overdose are higher than he odds of dying in a car accident. The most common odds of dying in 2017 are

The odds of dying from a certain type of injury also depends on the age category. The most common causes of accidental injury leading to death depending on age categories are: