Study shows patterns of opioid prescribing linked to suicide risk
Regions of the U. S. with the greatest decrease in opioid prescriptions found to have the greatest decline in suicide deaths
Peer-Reviewed PublicationControversy surrounds the effects of policies to reduce opioid prescriptions on suicide rates. There are concerns that rapid reductions in prescription opioids might provoke increased suicide risk among people who become desparate after they are taken off opioids. According to a new study at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and Columbia University Irving Medical Center, however, changes in regional opioid prescribing and regional suicide rates tend to move in the same direction. This relationship held for rates of opioid prescribing, rates of high-dose prescribing and long-term prescribing, and having multiple opioid prescribers. Until now it was not known whether certain opioid prescribing patterns were associated with particularly elevated suicide risk.
Overall opioid prescribing declined for each of the measures during the 2009–2017 period and the overall rate of total suicide deaths increased from 13.80 to 16.36 per 100,000 persons. By evaluating regional changes, however, the researchers estimate that had opioid prescribing remained constant rather than decreased, the national rate of suicide would have risen even faster than it did.
The findings are published online in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Alternately, having any opioid prescriptions and having three or more opioid prescribers were each negatively associated with unintentional opioid-related deaths in people in the age ranges of 10- to 24 and 25- to 44. For some opioid prescribing measures, negative associations were also observed with unintentional overdose deaths involving opioids among younger people.
“The relationship between opioid prescribing and suicide risk is a complex one. This is particularly the case when people have their opioids tapered,” said Mark Olfson, MD, MPH, professor of epidemiology at Columbia School of Public Health and Elizabeth K Dollard Professor of Psychiatry, Medicine and Law at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. ”People can become desperate if their pain is not well controlled. Yet opioids also pose a greater risk of overdose than any other drug class and approximately 40 percent of overdose suicide deaths in the U.S. involve opioids. At a population-level, the national decline in opioid prescribing over last several years appears to have reduced the number of people who died of suicide.”
Analyses were based on data from the 2009–2017 U.S. national IQVIA Longitudinal Prescription Database and National Center for Health Statistics mortality data. Information was based on opioid prescription, with high-dose prescriptions (>120 mg/day morphine equivalents), with long-term prescriptions (>60 consecutive days), and with prescriptions from three or more prescribers. For geographic aggregation, the researchers used states and commuting zones as defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The researchers looked at opioid prescribing measures for four age groups: 10–24, 25–44, 45–64, and 65 years or older, as well as males and females. Because length of opioid prescribing is strongly associated with persistent opioid use the researchers included a measure of percentage with opioid prescriptions for long-term opioid prescriptions measured at greater then or equal to 60 consecutive days. Also, because of the association between having multiple opioid prescribers and opioid overdose risk, Olfson and colleagues included a multiple prescriber measure as the percentage with three or more opioid prescribers during a year.
Among individuals in the 45- to 64-year age group, change in regional suicide deaths was positively associated with change in regional opioid prescriptions and change in percentage with at least one opioid prescription. Overall, the association with change in suicide deaths was significantly stronger in the West than in the East or the Midwest.
“If opioid prescribing per capita had held constant from 2009 to 2017, there would have been an estimated 10.5 percent more suicide deaths involving opioids in 2017,” noted Olfson. The corresponding estimated percentage increases in opioid-related suicide deaths were 15 percent, 9 percent, 9 percent, and 19 percent, respectively, for at least one opioid prescription, high-dose prescriptions, long-term prescriptions, and three or more opioid prescribers.
In the U.S., geographic regions with the greatest declines in people filling opioid prescriptions also tended to have the greatest declines in total suicide deaths. Had the national decline in opioid prescriptions between 2009 and 2017 not occurred, there would have been 3 percent more suicide deaths overall in the U.S. according to the research team. For four of five prescribing measures, decreasing regional opioid prescriptions were also related to declining total opioid-related overdose deaths.
“Although the present population-level research cannot establish that opioid prescriptions cause deaths by suicide, the results are consistent with the view that opioid prescription policies and practices should give careful attention to possible connections between prescription opioids and suicide risk,” noted Olfson.
Co-authors are Timothy Waidmann, and Vincent Pancini, Urban Institute, Health Policy Center, Washington, D.C.; Marissa King, University of Pennsylvania; and Michael Schoenbaum, NIMH, Bethesda.
The study was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, grant 1R01DA044981.
The authors report no financial relationships with commercial interests.
Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
Founded in 1922, the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health pursues an agenda of research, education, and service to address the critical and complex public health issues affecting New Yorkers, the nation and the world. The Columbia Mailman School is the fourth largest recipient of NIH grants among schools of public health. Its nearly 300 multi-disciplinary faculty members work in more than 100 countries around the world, addressing such issues as preventing infectious and chronic diseases, environmental health, maternal and child health, health policy, climate change and health, and public health preparedness. It is a leader in public health education with more than 1,300 graduate students from 55 nations pursuing a variety of master’s and doctoral degree programs. The Columbia Mailman School is also home to numerous world-renowned research centers, including ICAP and the Center for Infection and Immunity. For more information, please visit www.mailman.columbia.edu.
JOURNAL
American Journal of Psychiatry
ARTICLE TITLE
A study of opioid prescriptions and mortality found population-level evidence linking opioid prescribing to suicide risk
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
11-Apr-2023
New UK data system will help predict and prevent opioid overdoses in Kentucky
IMAGE: CO-LED BY SVETLA SLAVOVA AND JEFF TALBERT, RADOR-KY UTILIZE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TO HELP PREDICT AND PREVENT OPIOID OVERDOSES. view more
CREDIT: ARDEN BARNES | UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY PHOTO.
LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 10, 2023) — University of Kentucky researchers are creating an innovative statewide surveillance system to inform prevention and response efforts aimed at reducing the burden of opioid use disorder in Kentucky.
The Rapid Actionable Data for Opioid Response in Kentucky (RADOR-KY) will use data from federal, state, and local sources to guide evidence-based practices aimed at preventing opioid overdoses in the Commonwealth. Phase one of the project is supported by a three-year $3.1 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).
Driven by the COVID-19 pandemic and illegally manufactured fentanyl, drug overdose deaths in the U.S. increased to historic levels in 2021. Kentucky has been hit hard by the opioid epidemic. Overdose deaths reached an all-time high of 2,250, with 90% of those deaths involving an opioid.
Co-led by Svetla Slavova, Ph.D., associate professor in the College of Public Health, and Jeff Talbert, Ph.D., professor in the College of Medicine and College of Pharmacy, RADOR-KY will use a comprehensive set of data needed to effectively monitor and respond to the rapidly evolving opioid overdose crisis.
The system will use advanced algorithms to rapidly process data and help predict potential overdose surges using artificial intelligence.
“This unique, first-of-its-kind system will not only track and monitor overdose cases but use predictive analytics and dashboards for fast dissemination of analytical results to keep state agencies and local stakeholders on the frontlines of the opioid epidemic in Kentucky a step ahead,” said Slavova, who also serves as interim associate dean for research in the College of Public Health.
RADOR-KY will use data from multiple sources, including the Kentucky Office of Vital Statistics, syndromic surveillance, emergency medical services, prescription drug monitoring, Medicaid claims and drug seizure records. It will also track measures related to evidence-based practices such as treatment for opioid use disorder, overdose education and the distribution of naloxone, a life-saving medication that rapidly reverses an opioid overdose.
The project will leverage the expertise of UK research centers including the Kentucky Injury Prevention and Research Center, the Center on Drug and Alcohol Research, and the Institute for Biomedical Informatics. It also builds upon the expertise and experience gained from UK's work on the HEALing Communities Study (HCS).
“We’ve harnessed the power of our data processing capabilities at UK with the framework and experience gained from our work on the HEALing Communities Study, which has also shown that addressing this public health crisis requires working across disciplines,” said Talbert, who also directs the Institute for Biomedical Informatics.
“The HEALing Communities Study has been an exemplar of how a state and a university can work together and one of the deciding factors for receiving this award,” said HCS principal investigator Sharon Walsh, Ph.D., a professor in UK’s College of Medicine and College of Pharmacy and director for the Center on Drug and Alcohol Research.
Walsh leads the project’s substance use disorder team, which will advise on the content of evidence-based practices and state and local partners who are end users of the system.
Katherine Marks, Ph.D., a UK College of Medicine research assistant professor who serves as project director for the Kentucky Opioid Response Effort (KORE) within the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, is the project’s state government liaison.
Marks says RADOR-KY’s faster data processing, predictive analytics and inclusion of evidence-based practices will help the state take more strategic action.
“The opportunity for state and community partners to have readily available access to data so we can take action and evaluate how we’re doing in our response is a remarkable innovation,” said Marks. “This is a wonderful demonstration of the collaborative potential between the state and university expertise. It’s also yet another example of how UK is working as the University for Kentucky.”
An end-user advisory group, including partners in state government and local communities, will also guide the development of RADOR-KY. To advance the efforts to mitigate the opioid epidemic across the U.S. the team also plans to share programming code and algorithms in a public repository.
This project is supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R01DA057605. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
As the state’s flagship, land-grant institution, the University of Kentucky exists to advance the Commonwealth. We do that by preparing the next generation of leaders — placing students at the heart of everything we do — and transforming the lives of Kentuckians through education, research and creative work, service and health care. We pride ourselves on being a catalyst for breakthroughs and a force for healing, a place where ingenuity unfolds. It's all made possible by our people — visionaries, disruptors and pioneers — who make up 200 academic programs, a $501 million research and development enterprise and a world-class medical center, all on one campus.
In 2022, UK was ranked by Forbes as one of the “Best Employers for New Grads” and named a “Diversity Champion” by INSIGHT into Diversity, a testament to our commitment to advance Kentucky and create a community of belonging for everyone. While our mission looks different in many ways than it did in 1865, the vision of service to our Commonwealth and the world remains the same. We are the University for Kentucky.
No comments:
Post a Comment