A study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine sheds new light on the sharp rise in fatal drug overdoses in recent years, one of the most severe public health challenges of our time. The study found that the growth in fatal overdoses for non-Hispanic whites (NHWs) aged 22-56 years was sufficiently large to account for the entire growth in mortality rates (MR) and years of potential life lost (YPLL) for this population from 1999 to 2015.