Neighborhood just south of Churchill Downs had Jefferson County's highest rate of drug overdoses in 2017

The ZIP code just south of Churchill Downs had Jefferson County's highest rate of drug-overdose deaths in 2017, Joe Sonka of Insider Louisville reports after analyzing data from the county coroner.

"A resident from nearly every ZIP code within Louisville died from an accidental drug overdose in 2017, with the 40215 ZIP code stretching from Churchill Downs south to the Beechmont neighborhood being hit the hardest," Sonka writes. "As reported by Insider Louisville this week, these coroner records show that 2017 was another record-high year for accidental drug overdose deaths in the city, with the potential to surpass 400 once the office’s open cases from December are closed. This amounted to an 87 percent increase in such deaths over the past two years in Louisville, as the region’s opioid epidemic — now driven by fentanyl — continues to accelerate."

Insider Louisville map created by Pat Smith of the Civic Data Alliance

"While the southwestern part of the county had the highest number of residents die of a drug overdose, when factoring in population, much of the area surrounding downtown was also the hardest hit, particularly the neighborhoods stretching from Portland in the northwest through Old Louisville and into Germantown and the Highlands," Sonka reports. "In the 40215 ZIP code, 27 residents died of a drug overdose, second only to the 30 deaths in the 40216 ZIP code neighboring it to the west, stretching from Shively down to Lower Hunters Trace. However, when factoring in the number of deaths per 10,000 residents in each of the ZIP codes, the 12.8 in 40215 was nearly 50 percent highest than the next-highest area. . . . The 40118 ZIP code including Fairdale in the far south of the county had the second-highest death rate per 10,000 people of 8.6 — 8 residents total — followed by ZIP codes that surround the downtown area."