In the last decade, the rate of opioid overdose deaths in the United States has significantly increased, primarily driven by the rise in synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. Here are some key findings from the research:

1. Overall Increase: The rate of deaths involving opioids increased by 200% from 2000 to 2014 (Rudd et al., 2016).
2. Synthetic Opioids: From 2013 to 2019, deaths involving synthetic opioids increased by 1,040%, from 1.0 to 11.4 per 100,000 people (Mattson et al., 2021).
3. Recent Trends: In 2017, approximately two-thirds of the 70,237 drug overdose deaths involved an opioid, highlighting the ongoing severity of the epidemic (Scholl et al., 2018). By 2018, the rate of deaths involving synthetic opioids had continued to rise, driven largely by fentanyl (Wilson et al., 2020).
4. Impact on Demographics: All age groups and races experienced increases in opioid-involved overdose death rates, particularly non-Hispanic Blacks and Whites in metropolitan areas (Lippold et al., 2019).

In conclusion, the opioid overdose crisis in the United States has seen a dramatic increase in deaths over the last decade, with synthetic opioids playing a major role in this surge.