California End of Life Option Act 2018 Data Report

- From June 2016 through 2018, 1,108 prescriptions have been written for lethal medications

- 807 people, or 72.8%, have died after ingesting the medications in that period

- 86.7% of those who died were receiving hospice and/or palliative care

- In 2018, 337 people died from ingesting the medications

- Of the 337, nearly 90% percent were 60 or older; 94.4% had health insurance; and 88.1% were receiving hospice and/or palliative care. That translates to a rate of 12.6 per 10,000 deaths in California (337 of 268,4743 total deaths) in 2018.
 

Source: California Department of Public Health