Drug deaths by the week.

The number of recorded deaths in the United States regularly rises in the first week of each month, a pattern largely due to deaths involving substance abuse, report sociologist David P. Phillips of the University of California, San Diego and his colleagues. Federal benefits distributed at the start of the month may, in some cases, fund drug or alcohol purchases that raise the likelihood of lethal outcomes, the scientists assert in the July 8 NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE.

Phillips' group examined data from all U.S. death certificates between 1973 and 1988. From 1983 to 1988, the number of deaths involving substance abuse and external factors, such as homicide, were markedly higher in the first week of each month than in the last week of the preceding month.