Opioid Epidemic and Children in Foster Care

Have you ever thought about how opioid abuse and foster care effect one another?

This pie chart displays the percentage of children in foster care due to substance abuse. The majority of substance abuse cases are due to opioid overdoses. Percentage values are based on adjusted area percent so all counties could be depicted in the pie chart.

Notice how Carteret county displays the largest slice. This is because the amount of children in foster care due to substance abuse is 68.10%. This means that the majority of the children in foster care in Carteret county are there due to substance abuse. Keep in mind that larger slices do not depict larger population values, but rather percentages.

This bar and line graph illustrates the correlation between the amount of children in foster care comparative to the percentage of children in foster care due to substance abuse. The bar graphs are the population of children in foster care by county. The orange line corresponds to the percentage of children in foster care due to substance abuse. Notice again how Carteret county has the highest percentage of children in foster care due to substance abuse even though they have a smaller population of children in foster care. Washington County has the smallest percentage of children in foster care due to substance abuse.

The dot plot to the right shows the correlation between children in foster care and opioid overdose ED (emergency department) visits in 2020 by county. Colors correspond to the county indicated in the legend to the right. Larger dots indicate higher numbers of ED overdoses for that county for the year 2020.

This violin graph shows the correlation between opioid overdoses seen in the ER in 2020 and the percent of children in foster care due to substance abuse. These data produce a positive correlation, with Hyde County being an outlier. This means in counties with greater numbers of opioid overdose ER visits, more children were placed into foster care due to substance abuse. Carteret county remains at the top, with 198.6 opioid overdose ER visits in 2020 and 68.10% of children being in foster care due to substance abuse (2020). Hyde county remains an outlier as there were 77.7 opioid overdose ER visits in 2020 with 6.5% of children being in foster care due to substance abuse.

We have created "posters" with particular information that correlate with each county. QR codes have been embedded within each poster that

For New Hanover County, a statistic that we thought was influential was that more than half the number of children in foster care are there due to substance abuse. We decided to put this statistic on there as well as a QR code that links to the Wilmington Treatment Center for Drug Addiction.

Similar to New Hanover, Hyde also had an incredibly high rate of children in foster care due to opioid abuse. We added a QR code that links to the NC Department of Health and Human Services facilities page for rehab centers in North Carolina. Hyde County does not have a specific rehab facility, so this website will allow them to locate one nearest to them.

Carteret county had the highest number of children in foster care due to substance abuse, so we wanted to make this placemark a little more eye-catching. We decided to use the line "your child wants you to watch them grow up," because over 8,500 children are in foster care due to substance abuse. That is a lot of kids who are displaced solely because their parents or guardians are battling addiction. Carteret also had the highest number of overdoses (198) so we knew that it would reach a large audience. The QR code links to the Morehead City Rheab Center in Carteret.

For Beaufort County, 33% of children in foster care are there due to substance abuse. We wanted to switch this placemark up a little bit, while also encouraging people to do their research. This QR code also links to the NC Department of Health and Human Services facilities page for rehab centers in North Carolina

Washington County had the lowest number of Children in foster care due to substance abuse, so we wanted to make this placemark a little bit different. 6.5% is not a very high percentage to a lot of people, so instead of using the shock factor of the statistic, we used a different method. By encouraging people to bring the percentage down to 0%, it doing two things: First its reminding people that the percentage should be zero, while also giving people a goal for them to work towards.