{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,26]],"date-time":"2025-12-26T22:26:46Z","timestamp":1766788006826},"reference-count":15,"publisher":"Wiley","issue":"5","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,6,12]],"date-time":"2023-06-12T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1686528000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["onlinelibrary.wiley.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Journal of Forensic Sciences"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2023,9]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title><jats:p>The evolving opioid epidemic in the United States, fueled by illicit fentanyl, has greatly increased deaths from illicit drug use. These nonnatural deaths require formal death investigation. The National Association of Medical Examiners states in its Forensic Autopsy Performance Standards that autopsy remains a necessary component for proper investigation of suspected acute overdose deaths. If a death investigation office lacks adequate resources to investigate all deaths under its jurisdiction while meeting expected standards, then that office may be forced to consider altering its protocols for investigation by changing the types of deaths investigated or the extent of its investigations. Drug death investigations take longer to complete because novel illicit drugs and mixtures of drugs complicate toxicological analyses, prolonging a family's wait for completion of a death certificate and autopsy report. Public health agencies must also wait for results, but some agencies have developed mechanisms for rapid notification of preliminary results to allow timely deployment of public health resources. The increased deaths have strained the resources of medicolegal death investigation systems throughout the United States. Given the significant workforce shortage of forensic pathologists, newly trained forensic pathologists are too few to meet the demand. Nevertheless, forensic pathologists (and all pathologists) must make time to present their work and themselves to medical students and pathology trainees to encourage an understanding of the importance of quality medicolegal death investigation and autopsy pathology and to provide a model that can encourage interest in a career in forensic pathology.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1111\/1556-4029.15304","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,6,12]],"date-time":"2023-06-12T11:58:45Z","timestamp":1686571125000},"page":"1626-1631","update-policy":"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1002\/crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":9,"title":["The effects of the (fentanyl\u2010fueled) drug overdose epidemic on medicolegal death investigation in the United States"],"prefix":"10.1111","volume":"68","author":[{"given":"Gregory G.","family":"Davis","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Forensic Division, Department of Pathology University of Alabama at Birmingham  Birmingham Alabama USA"},{"name":"Jefferson County, Alabama  Birmingham Alabama USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Corinne L.","family":"Fligner","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology University of Washington  Seattle Washington USA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"311","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,6,12]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_2_9_2_1","first-page":"1","article-title":"Drug overdose deaths in the United States, 2001\u20132021","volume":"457","author":"Spencer MR","year":"2022","journal-title":"NCHS Data Brief"},{"key":"e_1_2_9_3_1","first-page":"1","article-title":"Drug overdose deaths in the United States, 1999\u20132020","volume":"428","author":"Hedegaard H","year":"2021","journal-title":"NCHS Data Brief"},{"key":"e_1_2_9_4_1","unstructured":"Number of deaths and crude death rates Michigan and United States residents 1970\u20132021. 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