In the fight to combat the opiate epidemic in America, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced a new initiative. Priorities include changing physicians’ opioid prescribing practices, expanding the use of naloxone, which treats overdoses, and expanding medication-assisted treatment to address addiction and mortality related to opioid drugs.

An HHS fact sheet released April 24, 2019, says that:

“from January 2017 to February 2019, there has been a 23 percent increase in patients receiving buprenorphine and a 42 percent increase in prescriptions for naltrexone. Community health centers funded by HRSA [Health Resources and Services Administration] saw a 64 percent increase in patients receiving MAT [medication-assisted treatment] from 2016 to 2017. We’ve awarded over $350 million in grants to support a whole-of-government effort in four different States to reduce overdose deaths by 40 percent in their communities within three years, as part of the NIH [National Institutes of Health] HEALing Communities Study. This initiative will help communities in Ohio, Kentucky, New York, and Massachusetts mount a comprehensive response to this crisis.”

The centers are Boston Medical Center, Columbia University, the University of Kentucky, and Ohio State University. Funded programs will focus on early intervention, prevention, treatment, and justice.

Additionally, NIH will continue to do research investigating neonatal abstinence syndrome, a condition associated with opioid use during pregnancy.

To read more, see the February 2018 issue of Congressional Digest on the “Opioid Crisis.”