910 deaths from drug overdoses last year. That’s the depressing stat in the video below. This is a way bigger problem than homicides (278 in 2016).

To put this number in a little more context, I looked up some statistics on all causes of death in Philadelphia – the most recent year I could find was 2015. Here are a few highlights:

• “diseases of heart”: 3,418
• “nontransport accidents”: 823 (I imagine this includes everything from drowning to falling off a ladder to kids playing with guns – it’s a surprisingly large number of people, but possibly also the hardest category to do something about)
• “diabetes mellitus”: 365
• homicide: 291
• “intentional self harm (suicide)”: 160 (the teen rate is relatively low, then suicides reach a pretty steady rate for people in their 20s through 50s)
• “motor vehicle accidents”: 98 (I’m surprised this isn’t higher, but still, most of these should be preventable. It doesn’t tell us how many of these are pedestrians and bicyclists.)
• HIV: 67 (the majority are deaths are people in their 50s and 60s)
• “all other causes”: 2,542

It’s not that I enjoy thinking about death. But if you were looking for public policies to help people and politics and institutional baggage were not issues, you would look at the causes that kill the most people the youngest, and the ones where policy is likely to have the greatest impact. Getting people on maintenance medications to control blood pressure, diabetes, and cholesterol is obviously important – perhaps some sort of universal health care program could be considered. Dealing with drug overdoses and the underlying economic and mental health issues would be crucial. Dealing with mental health in a serious way would also help with the suicide problem.