We use cookies to provide you with the best possible website experience. This includes cookies that are necessary for the operation of the site, as well as cookies used for anonymous statistics, comfort settings, or displaying personalized content. You can decide which categories you want to allow. Please note that depending on your settings, some features of the website may not be available.

Cookie settings

These necessary cookies are required to enable the core functionality of the website. Opting out of these cookies is not possible.

cb-enable
This cookie stores the user's cookie consent status for the current domain. Expiry: 1 year.
laravel_session
Stores the session ID to recognize the user when the page reloads and to restore their login session. Expiry: 2 hours.
XSRF-TOKEN
Provides CSRF protection for forms. Expiry: 2 hours.
IZA Discussion Paper No. 18562
April 2026
The Post-Fentanyl Urbanization of the Opioid Epidemic
Alexander Kucera, Adam Scavette, Zachary Porreca

The geography of the U.S. opioid epidemic has shifted across successive waves. After a period in which overdose mortality increasingly burdened rural and suburban communities, the fentanyl era appears to have redirected harm toward dense urban cores. We document this post-2015 urbanization using national mortality microdata from CDC WONDER and inpatient discharge records from Pennsylvania. We show three patterns. First, urban overdose mortality rises sharply after fentanyl becomes the dominant illicit opioid. Second, within large metropolitan areas, overdose rates diverge between core counties and suburban peripheries, with especially large gaps in eastern metros, where fentanyl diffused earlier and more intensely. Third, within the Philadelphia region, overdose-related inpatient admissions become increasingly concentrated in a small number of central-city ZIP codes, especially near longstanding drug-market hotspots. We argue that this shift reflects both supply- and demand-side changes associated with fentanyl. If overdose risk is becoming more spatially concentrated, then naloxone distribution, outreach, enforcement, and emergency response may be more effective when targeted to a narrower set of urban locations.

Communications
Mark Fallak
mark.fallak@liser.lu
+352 585-855-526
World of Labour
Olga Nottmeyer
olga.nottmeyer-ext@liser.lu
+352 585-855-501
Network Coordination
Christina Gathmann
christina.gathmann@liser.lu

The IZA@LISER Network is a global community of scholars dedicated to excellence in labor economics and related fields, now coordinated at the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) following its transition from Bonn.

About IZA@LISER Network
Contact
IZA@LISER NETWORK (Current Site Operator):

Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER)
11, Porte des Sciences
Maison des Sciences Humaines
L-4366 Esch-sur-Alzette / Belval, Luxembourg

IZA Institute (In Liquidation):

Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH i. L.
Schaumburg-Lippe-Str. 5-9, 53113 Bonn. Germany
Phone: +49 228 3894-0 | Fax: +49 228 3894-510
E-Mail: info@iza.org | Web: www.iza.org
Represented by: Martin T. Clemens (Liquidator)