What Does 'Polysubstance' Really Mean? Comparing Drug-Involved Deaths in Los Angeles in CDC Records vs. Detailed Medical Examiner Data

IntroductionThe ongoing overdose crisis in the United States is increasingly characterized by polysubstance involvement, shifting beyond single-drug fatalities to complex combinations that present novel public health challenges. However, most epidemiological literature describing the US overdose crisis has still primarily relied on traditional data sources, especially the CDC WONDER system that is limited to assessing drugs with established ICD-10 codes using a maximum of n=2 ICD-10 codes. In this analysis we leverage complete medical examiner records Los Angeles County examine the limitations of CDC WONDER data for detecting polysubstance drug deaths. MethodsDeaths counts describing drug-involved deaths occurring in Los Angeles County were described using the CDC WONDER system, and medical examiner data from Los Angeles County. The average number of drugs, and the proportion of polysubstance deaths (involving 2 or more) involving 3 or more substances was summarized by year. Head-to-head comparisons were conducted of single-drug involvement, and UpSet plot visualization was employed for complex set analysis. ResultsThe average number of drugs present per drug-involved death increased from 1.72 in 2012 to a peak of 2.29 in 2023. The percentage of polysubstance deaths (2+ substances) that would not be fully characterizable using the CDC WONDER system given a 2 drug limit), increased from 51% in 2012 to a peak of 74% in 2023. The total number of unique polysubstance combinations with >2 substances increased from n=11 in 2012 to n=57 in 2023 and was n=39 in 2024. Overall concordance in single-substance death counts between CDC WONDER and medical examiner records was high among n=6 substances of interest. Across n=42 drug and year pairs observed between 2018 and 2024, the overall R2 according to a Pearson correlation analysis was 0.99. DiscussionAlthough concordance is very high for trends describing single-substance drug deaths, CDC WONDER fails to capture the majority of polysubstance deaths adequately. We find that a very large fraction of polysubstance deaths (about three quarters) are incompletely described using the 2 drug limit employed by CDC WONDER. This limitation has increased over time, as the complexity of polysubstance overdose deaths has increased. We illustrate a huge variety of polysubstance deaths that can be seen in medical examiner deaths. As the overdose crisis grows increasingly polysubstance in nature, improving the epidemiological tracking of deaths involving multiple drugs, and drugs not captured by ICD-10 codes currently, is of paramount importance. Here we highlight the gaps in existing traditional epidemiological sources which may serve as a motivating example for future improvements.