Ranapurwala and his coauthors calculated rates of opioid overdoses in former NC

inmates and compared those rates with the rates of overdose in NC residents over
the time period 2000-2015.  Refer to Table 1 and the methods section from
Ranapurwala SI, Shanahan ME, Alexandridis AA, Proescholdbell SK, Naumann RB,
Edwards D Jr, Marshall SW. Opioid Overdose Mortality Among Former North Carolina
Inmates: 2000-2015.  Am J Public Health. 2018 Sep;108(9):1207-1213. 
 

 
 
 
Methods Section Excerpt (page e2): "In addition, we used bridged-race
population estimates, 2000-2015, from the National Vital Statistics System
(managed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) to obtain annual
population estimates for NC."
 
Part A) What important assumption does Ranapurwala et al. 2018 make in the
table above with respect to rate of opioid overdose death? (Hint: How does
Ranapurwala estimate rate denominators?) What are the implications of
this/these assumption(s) for rate estimation? In other words, why do these
assumptions matter for rate estimation?
 
Part B) Compare the size (magnitude) of the rates of opioid overdose in the NC
population with those in former prison inmates.  What patterns do you
observe?