Work

We Need a Taxonomy of State-Level Opioid Policies

Year: 2020

Type: article

Abstract: The opioid crisis is an unprecedented national emergency.Societal costs from misuse of, addiction to, and overdose from prescription opioids, heroin, and synthetic opioids over the last 2 decades account for hundreds of thousands of deaths and billions of dollars in economic burden. 1 States have responded with wide-ranging policies that vary substantially in their key components and the opioid-crisis aspects targeted.Even nominally identical policies, such as prescription drug monitoring programs, differ in design details across states and over time.These details matter for explaining differential results on key outcomes. 2Consequently, it is critical to identify the most effective policy components and how best to implement them.The lack of a standardized nomenclature to classify state-level opioid policies is a substantial barrier to understanding their effectiveness.For example, a recent study found that state laws allowing pharmacist-direct dispensing of naloxone were associated with significant reductions in fatal overdoses, but no such association was observed for other pharmacy naloxone access laws. 3The bespoke categorization of naloxone access laws as either providing pharmacists direct or indirect authority to dispense naloxone was subsequently challenged as an oversimplification, given that heterogeneity in

Source: JAMA Health Forum

DOI: 10.1001/jamahealthforum.2020.0050

Authors: Sean Grant, Rosanna Smart, Bradley D. Stein

Institutions: RAND Corporation, Indiana University Indianapolis, University of Pittsburgh

Language: English

Topic: Opioid Use Disorder Treatment

Subfield: Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

Field: Medicine

Domain: Health Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $5,000