Citation

Fischer B, Pang M, Tyndall M. J. Public Health (Oxford) 2019; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

School of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Oxford University Press)

DOI

10.1093/pubmed/fdz162

PMID

31822889

Abstract

North America has been experiencing an acute and unprecedented public health crisis involving excessive and increasing levels of opioid-related overdose mortality. In the present commentary, we examine current interventions (as existent mainly in Canada) to date and compare them against established intervention frameworks and practices in other areas of public health, specifically injury and infectious disease control. We observe that current interventions focusing on opioid drug safety or exposure-specifically those that focus on distinctly potent and toxic opioid products driving major increases in overdose mortality-may be considered the equivalent of 'agent-' or 'vector'-based interventions. Such interventions have been largely neglected in favor of 'host' (e.g., drug user-oriented) or 'environmental' measures among strategies to reduce opioid-related overdose, likely contributing to the limited efficacy of current measures. We explore potential reasons, implications and remedies for these gaps in the overall public health strategy employed towards improved interventions to reduce opioid-related health harms.

© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Faculty of Public Health.

Language: en

Keywords

injury prevention; interventions; mortality; opioids; public health