Some policy responses to the opioid epidemic have immediate, beneficial effects, while others lead to short-term harms that might be offset by long-term health benefits, according to researchers who have mathematically modeled the impact of 11 interventions.
Policies that expand addiction treatment or curb harmful effects of addiction such as overdose and infection were immediately beneficial in the model, with no negative effects on life years (LYs), quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), or addiction deaths, the researchers reported.
In contrast, policies that constrain prescription opioid supply resulted in some benefits, but also short-term harms because of inadequate pain control and users switching to heroin.
However, the modeling study also suggests those harms might be mitigated over the long term as new addictions are averted, according to Allison L. Pitt, a PhD candidate in the department of management science and engineering at Stanford (Calif.) University, and her coauthors.
Combining different interventions had additive benefits in the model, prompting Ms. Pitt and her coauthors to recommend a multifaceted policy approach to curb opioid abuse and reduce addiction deaths.
“,” they wrote in the American Journal of Public Health. “Instead, portfolios of policies will likely be required, including those that prevent addiction, treat addiction, and mitigate its effects.”
In their study, Ms. Pitt and her colleagues projected the impact of 11 policies aimed at curbing opioid addiction and reducing addiction deaths. They used dynamic compartmental modeling, a technique commonly used for evaluating the spread of contagious disease.
This technique is appropriate for studying the opioid epidemic, because it allows for dynamic modeling of addiction incidence that reflects a changing number of prescription holders, the authors said in their report, which focused on projected outcomes of various interventions at 5 and 10 years.
None of the policies substantially reduced opioid-related deaths in 5-year outcomes projections, they found. Increasing availability of naloxone averted 4% of addiction deaths, the highest reduction of any intervention over that time period.
However, interventions focused on providing services for people with addictions did generally provide uniform benefits over the 5-year horizon: “Naloxone availability, needle exchange, medication-assisted treatment, and psychosocial treatment policies generate gains in LYs and QALYs and reduce deaths, without harming any group,” Ms. Pitt and her coauthors said.
Interventions that reduced opioid supply, such as excess opioid disposal and reduced prescribing for transitioning pain, increased LYs and QALYs while decreasing total addiction deaths over 5 years. However, the investigators said, those benefits were partly offset by increases in heroin-related deaths.
Drug rescheduling was associated with a 45.6% increase in heroin-related deaths over 5 years in the model, the highest percentage increase of any intervention in the published data.
Over the 10-year horizon, addiction deaths continued to decrease proportionally for naloxone availability and needle-exchange policies, authors said. By comparison, policies focused on opioid supply, such as excess opioid disposal and reduced prescribing for transitioning pain, averted substantially more deaths over 10 years than would be expected, compared with the 5-year results, investigators said.
Acute pain prescribing, which increased opioid-related deaths over 5 years in the model, was associated with a decrease in opioid-related deaths over 10 years, they added.
The report coauthors were Keith Humphreys, PhD, of Stanford’s department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, and Margaret L. Brandeau, PhD, of the university’s department of management science and engineering.
The coauthors cited several limitations. One is that the opioid epidemic is changing in unpredictable ways. Therefore, numerous assumptions about the epidemic were made based on the opinions of clinicians and scientists.
The study was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Dr. Humphreys reported support through a Senior Career Research Scientist award from the VA Health Services Research and Development Service.
SOURCE: Pitt AL et al. Am J Public Health. 2018 Aug 23. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2018.304590.
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