Rates of Receiving Medication for Opioid Use Disorder and Opioid Overdose Deaths During the Early Synthetic Opioid Crisis: A County-level Analysis.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Medications for opioid use disorder are associated with a lower risk of drug overdoses at the individual level. However, little is known about whether these effects translate to population-level reductions. We investigated whether county-level efforts to increase access to medication for opioid use disorder in 2012-2014 were associated with opioid overdose deaths in New York State during the first years of the synthetic opioid crisis.

Methods

We performed an ecologic county-level study including data from 60 counties (2010-2018). We calculated rates of people receiving medication for opioid use disorder among the population misusing opioids in 2012-2014 and categorized counties into quartiles of this exposure. We modeled synthetic and nonsynthetic opioid overdose

SUBMITTER: Santaella-Tenorio J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11785500 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature