Drug-involved infant deaths more than doubled (120% increase) from 2018 to 2022, with the greatest proportion of deaths in 2021 (25.8%). The most prevalent underlying causes of death included assault (homicide) by drugs, medicaments and biological substances (35.6%). A significant proportion of infants who died from drug-involved causes were born to non-Hispanic white (60.4%) and non-Hispanic Black mothers (28.5%). Furthermore, drug-induced mortality was 56.5% in male infants and 43.7% in female infants, a difference which also was statistically significant.
