Mobilizing State Action to Prevent Prescription Opioid Misuse, Abuse and Overdose

Title:   Mobilizing State Action to Prevent Prescription Opioid Misuse, Abuse and Overdose

Learning Objectives

• Discuss how the ASTHO President’s Challenge mobilized action to address prescription drug misuse, abuse, and overdose using a comprehensive public health approach.
• Identify three types of policies and/or programs that state health agencies pledged to conduct.
• Summarize promising state strategies or outcomes reported by state health officials

Issues: Deaths from drug overdose steadily increased over the past two decades and are the leading cause of injury death in the U.S.  Among 25 to 64 year-olds, drug overdose causes more deaths than motor vehicle traffic crashes. Of the 22,134 deaths relating to prescription drug overdose in 2010, 75% involved opioid analgesics.

Description: Every year the incoming Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) president introduces a Challenge for state health officials to focus attention on a critical national health issue. Last September, ASTHO president Terry Cline’s Challenge was to reduce the rate of nonmedical use and the number of unintentional overdose deaths involving controlled prescription drugs 15 percent by 2015. 

Lessons Learned: The Challenge galvanized support for state health officials, governmental state agencies, national partners, and others to identify interventions supporting a comprehensive framework spanning prevention, surveillance, enforcement, treatment and recovery.

Recommendations: (1) Engage health care professionals, consumers, families and communities in effective prevention strategies; (2) use monitoring and surveillance to improve public health and clinical practice; (3) improve collaboration between public health and law enforcement; (4) approach addiction as a treatable chronic illness.