Part of the Population Health Primer Series, Opioids and Population Health: A Primer provides a concise overview of the opioid crisis leading the reader to explore what's been done to address this epidemic thusfar and what might be done more effectively using a population health approach. Written from a systems and public health perspective, Opioids and Population Health: A Primer begins with an overview of how drug use and addiction have been perceived and how prevention, intervention, and treatment services have been delivered in the U.S. It then reviews the epidemiology of opioid morbidity and mortality, historical framing of addiction, and addresses the government response to the epidemic. Finally, it explores the public health response to the epidemic and considers how a population health approach may better address the epidemic.

"Opioids and Population Health: A Primer, will help senior undergraduate and graduate students to: 1. Describe theories of addiction. 2. Demonstrate the differences between substance abuse prevention, intervention, and treatment. 3. Explain the United States' historical response to opioids. 4. Discuss the differential scope and burden of the current opioid and heroin epidemic on communities and populations. 5. Explain the various sectors, government agencies, and institutions that address addiction generally and the opioid/heroin epidemic specifically. 6. Describe the effectiveness of policy, legal, and regulatory approaches currently in use to address the epidemic. 7. Consider recommendations for sustainable policy and systems changes that are needed to change the opioid addiction trajectory and reduce the epidemic. The text is written through an interdisciplinary approach using the fields of public health, addiction health services research, and implementation science. The authors' experiences with direct client services, city, county, and state governments, managing non-profits, and evaluating treatment interventions speaks to their ability to address issues related to the epidemic thoroughly and critically"--

Drug overdose, driven largely by overdose related to the use of opioids, is now the leading cause of unintentional injury death in the United States. The ongoing opioid crisis lies at the intersection of two public health challenges: reducing the burden of suffering from pain and containing the rising toll of the harms that can arise from the use of opioid medications. Chronic pain and opioid use disorder both represent complex human conditions affecting millions of Americans and causing untold disability and loss of function. In the context of the growing opioid problem, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched an Opioids Action Plan in early 2016. As part of this plan, the FDA asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to convene a committee to update the state of the science on pain research, care, and education and to identify actions the FDA and others can take to respond to the opioid epidemic, with a particular focus on informing FDA's development of a formal method for incorporating individual and societal considerations into its risk-benefit framework for opioid approval and monitoring.

The opioid crisis in the United States has come about because of excessive use of these drugs for both legal and illicit purposes and unprecedented levels of consequent opioid use disorder (OUD). More than 2 million people in the United States are estimated to have OUD, which is caused by prolonged use of prescription opioids, heroin, or other illicit opioids. OUD is a life-threatening condition associated with a 20-fold greater risk of early death due to overdose, infectious diseases, trauma, and suicide. Mortality related to OUD continues to escalate as this public health crisis gathers momentum across the country, with opioid overdoses killing more than 47,000 people in 2017 in the United States. Efforts to date have made no real headway in stemming this crisis, in large part because tools that already existâ€"like evidence-based medicationsâ€"are not being deployed to maximum impact. To support the dissemination of accurate patient-focused information about treatments for addiction, and to help provide scientific solutions to the current opioid crisis, this report studies the evidence base on medication assisted treatment (MAT) for OUD. It examines available evidence on the range of parameters and circumstances in which MAT can be effectively delivered and identifies additional research needed.

POPULATION HEALTH SCIENCE formalizes an emerging discipline at the crossroads of social and medical sciences, demography, and economics--an emerging approach to population studies that represents a seismic shift in how traditional health sciences measure and observe health events. Bringing together theories and methods from diverse fields, this text provides grounding in the factors that shape population health. The overall approach is one of consequentialist science: designing creative studies that identify causal factors in health with multidisciplinary rigor. Distilled into nine foundational principles, this book guides readers through population science studies that strategically incorporate: · macrosocial factors · multilevel, lifecourse, and systems theories · prevention science fundamentals · return on investment · equity and efficiency Harnessing the power of scientific inquiry and codifying the knowledge base for a burgeoning field, POPULATION HEALTH SCIENCE arms readers with tools to shift the curve of population health.

This book provides an in-depth look at clinical and public health approaches to this epidemic from both psychiatric and medical perspectives and gives mental health professionals the big picture necessary to understand the epidemic.

THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE FOR PUBLIC HEALTH PROFESSIONALS FIGHTING THE OPIOID EPIDEMIC The opioid crisis has devastated families and communities across the United States. Changes in policing and medical practices have been swift, but they've achieved only a modest impact on the fundamental causes of substance misuse and addiction. The necessity for upstream intervention is clear. But what does that look like? A Public Health Guide to Ending the Opioid Epidemic does what only a public health approach can: offer credible, scalable, and empirically supported approaches to uprooting one of society's most pernicious challenges. It systemizes the core tenets of the public health approach to substance misuse and addiction, which alongside clinical approaches (prescription guidelines and monitoring, increased access to overdose-reversal medication, and medication-assisted treatment availability) offers a roadmap for end-to-end response to this diverse problem. Core elements of the public health approach, all covered here in practical terms, include: · How to support community-based, primary prevention of substance misuse and addiction in different settings and populations · How to effectively address the cultural, social, and environmental aspects of health that are driving the current epidemic · How governmental public health agencies play a significant role in responding to the epidemic, both in the field's traditional model of disease surveillance and control and in more directed approaches to health promotion (building community resilience; addressing the impact of adverse childhood events; mitigating the root causes of addiction) These frameworks offer a foundation for understanding, analyzing, and meaningfully impacting the burden of opioid misuse and addiction in any population or setting. A Public Health Guide to Ending the Opioid Epidemic is a roadmap for meaningful change.