A Public Health Guide to Ending the Opioid Epidemic
Jay C. Butler and Michael R. Fraser
Abstract
Few contributions to the field concerning the current opioid crisis in the United States focus sufficient attention on the public health aspects of the epidemic and share examples that practitioners can use to prevent opioid use disorder and the broader issues of substance misuse and addiction. A great deal of prior published work has concentrated on health care and clinical perspectives related to the crisis, including developing prescribing guidelines, enhancing prescription drug monitoring programs, scaling up access to overdose reversal medication, and making medication-assisted treatment ... More
Few contributions to the field concerning the current opioid crisis in the United States focus sufficient attention on the public health aspects of the epidemic and share examples that practitioners can use to prevent opioid use disorder and the broader issues of substance misuse and addiction. A great deal of prior published work has concentrated on health care and clinical perspectives related to the crisis, including developing prescribing guidelines, enhancing prescription drug monitoring programs, scaling up access to overdose reversal medication, and making medication-assisted treatment more widely available nationwide. This book adds to and complements this prior work by addressing the central tenets of the public health approach to the opioid crisis. Topics include how to best support community-based, primary prevention of substance misuse and addiction in various settings with diverse populations and how to effectively address the cultural, social, and environmental aspects of health that are driving the epidemic. Chapters describe how governmental public health agencies play a significant role in responding to the epidemic, in both public health’s traditional approach to disease surveillance and control and contemporary approaches to health promotion that include building community resilience, addressing the impact of adverse childhood events, and mitigating the root causes of addiction community-wide. This volume can be used to explore what it means to address primary prevention of addiction and how public health practitioners have led efforts to promote “opioid stewardship” at the local, state, and federal levels.
Keywords:
primary prevention,
public health,
opioid use disorder,
substance use disorder,
addiction,
partnership and collaboration in public health
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2019 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780190056810 |
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2019 |
DOI:10.1093/oso/9780190056810.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Jay C. Butler, editor
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Michael R. Fraser, editor
Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO)
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