Yabapai County is one of the first counties in Arizona to establish an overdose review board. Every year, they analyze and compile overdose death data from their annual report.

Merrily Fowler is the executive director of MATFORCE, a coalition of Yavapai County community organizations. Their mission is to prevent and reduce the use of substances.

Fowler says that in 2024, the same 66 deaths as last year. But what surprised her was the number of deaths caused by methamphetamine poisoning.

“Because of the fentanyl epidemic, there’s the opioid epidemic that we’ve been experiencing, so people just think it’s fentanyl,” Fowler said.

This year, the town of Camp Verde had one overdose death, with the highest number of overdose deaths per person compared to last year’s four.

“Former Camp Verde on our board. We’re talking about strategies that we know are higher than the higher rate of deaths from normal overdose in one community,” Fowler said.

Additionally, elderly people affected by substance use

“The retired population is old. But looking at the overdose death data, we’ll go back to 2024. The highest age category is 30-39, but behind that is 50-59 and 60-69,” Fowler said.

She says when they saw an overdose in the elderly population, they mainly discovered methamphetamine addiction and illegal fentanyl.