Opioid Prescribing Trends and the Physician’s Role in Responding to the Public Health Crisis

The opioid overdose epidemic affects millions of Americans and their families. Nationwide polls reveal that 49% of respondents personally know someone who is or has been addicted to prescription opioid medication.¹ In 2017, more than 49 000 people died in the United States of opioid overdoses, according to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).² This crisis has spanned different phases, beginning with increased overdose deaths from prescription opioids, which then evolved to increased heroin overdose deaths, and most recently manifesting as a dramatic spike in overdose deaths from illicitly manufactured fentanyl and fentanyl analogs.