Perry County overdose deaths keep falling amid statewide decline

Fewer Perry County families are losing loved ones to overdose as Kentucky reports another steep drop in fatal drug deaths, a sign local health workers and recovery groups say reflects years of coordination across the region.

Kentucky recorded 1,110 overdose deaths in 2025, down 22.9% from 1,439 in 2024 and 50.8% from 2021. The total was the lowest the commonwealth has seen since 2014, though state leaders still called the number far too high. The decline continues a statewide slide that began in 2023 and gives Perry County another data point suggesting the crisis is easing, if only gradually.

In Perry County and nearby Hazard, the progress matters in very practical ways: fewer overdose scenes for first responders, fewer emergency calls that end in a death, and more chances for recovery groups to reach people before a crisis turns fatal. Joann Fraley, the overdose prevention and recovery support manager with the Kentucky River District Health Department, has tied the improvement to cooperation among several people and agencies working across the region. Fraley also appears in Kentucky River District Health Department board minutes as HANDS Supervisor in March 2024, underscoring her role inside the district’s public-health network.

State officials have credited part of the drop to wider access to naloxone and recovery services, along with a more coordinated response to substance use. The Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy, which coordinates the state’s response to substance abuse, has been central to that effort. For rural counties such as Perry, that coordination can mean the difference between scattered services and a system that reaches people where they live.

The warning signs remain clear. In Kentucky’s 2024 overdose fatality report, fentanyl was present in 62.3% of overdose deaths and methamphetamine in 50.8%. The state reported 1,410 overdose deaths that year, a 30.2% drop from 2023, and 170 Black Kentucky residents died from overdose, down 37.3% from the year before. Those figures show the decline is broad, but they also show how persistent the threat remains.

For Perry County, the trend points to real progress, not a finished fight. The numbers are moving in the right direction, and the people trying to hold that line in Hazard and across the Kentucky River District still face a drug supply shaped by fentanyl and methamphetamine.