How can Data Help Us Fight the Opioid Epidemic?

Opioid misuse continues to exact heavy public health, economic, and social toll across the United States. Improper use of prescription pain medicines, heroin, and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl claims over 33,000 lives per year and each day more than 1,000 people are treated in emergency departments because of misuse of such drugs. Economic impacts include increased health care and addiction treatment costs, lost productivity, and criminal justice involvement, while health impacts include loss of life, rising rates of neonatal abstinence syndrome, and increased spread of infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C. The recent proliferation of the potent synthetic fentanyl has exacerbated all of these issues.

Illegal Supply

Powerful illicit opioids come to the United States via an international supply chain. Clandestine labs in China produce synthetic opioids which are then mixed into heroin or other drugs in Mexico before being smuggled into the United States.⁶ Drug trafficking organizations use common supply routes for both heroin and synthetic fentanyl and target the same users, meaning that combatting the two drugs is an intertwined set of problems.

Drug Smuggling & Trafficking

Powerful illicit opioids come to the United States via an internaƟonal supply chain. ClandesƟne labs in China produce synthetic opioids which are then mixed into heroin or other drugs in Mexico before being smuggled into the United States.

Drug Trafficking

Prescribing and dispensing narcotics without a legitimate purpose.

Doctor Shopping and Pill Mills

Doctor Shopping is visiting more than one physician to obtain a supply of narcotics via multiple medication prescriptions. Pill Mills prescribe and dispense narcotics without a legitimate purpose. States have put in place Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs) to combat these abuses; however, the full power of PDMP data has not been tapped.

Doctor Shopping

Visiting more than one physician to obtain a supply of narcotics via multiple medication prescriptions.

Pill Mills

Prescribing and dispensing narcotics without a legitimate purpose.

Public Attitudes

Attitudes and beliefs have contributed to the opioid crisis, from underestimating the addictive potential of these drugs to the public’s willingness to share painkillers. Well-intentioned desires to relieve the suffering caused by pain can result in opportunities for addiction. Data-driven psychographic techniques, which have been applied in areas ranging from personalized marketing to wartime information operations, could be applied to influence the public’s attitudes towards opioid use. Better information could influence behavior, such as improving compliance with PDMP requirements when dispensing medications.

Rich information hidden in large volumes of heterogeneous data has the potential to help combat opioid abuse. Extracting meaning from data can yield insights and actionable strategies for addressing this crisis.

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