OPIOID abuse is a national emergency, and the president is expected to declare it so officially. That will help free up funds for agencies to treat the problem. As part of this effort, researchers will try to determine when the opioid epidemic will peak, and how many more people are likely to die before it fades. The answer to that second question can vary by half a million deaths over the next decade.
The epidemic appears to be gathering pace. Of the 65,000 drug-overdose victims in the 12 months to March 2017, 80% died from opioids (coroners’ reports may undercount that figure). The death toll now exceeds the height of the AIDS epidemic in 1995. Donald Burke, dean of public health at the University of Pittsburgh, points out that the number of fatal drug overdoses has doubled every eight years for the past 37. Unabated, a continuation of that trend would see annual opioid deaths rising to 90,000 by the middle of the next decade.
That analysis may be too simplistic. Mr Burke’s forecast is “plausible if nothing changes”, but it is “insane if it actually happens”, according to Michael Barnett, a professor of health policy and management at Harvard University. A more nuanced model would try to capture the fact that the opioid epidemic is not a singular event but a set of intertwined ones taking place in different places. Mr Barnett forecasts that...Continue reading
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