Anonymous asked:
What will declaring a the opioid epidemic a "public health crisis" do to address the problem?
Declaring the opioid epidemic a public health crisis helps to raise the visibility on the seriousness of the issue and charges the federal government with redoubling their efforts to combat the opioid crisis. It also enables HHS to use additional emergency authorities that can enhance our comprehensive five-point HHS Opioid Strategy that aims to:
- Improve access to prevention, treatment, and recovery support services to prevent the health, social, and economic consequences associated with opioid addiction and to enable individuals to achieve long-term recovery;
- Target the availability and distribution of overdose-reversing drugs to ensure the broad provision of these drugs to people likely to experience or respond to an overdose, with a particular focus on targeting high-risk populations;
- Strengthen public health data reporting and collection to improve the timeliness and specificity of data and to inform a real-time public health response as the epidemic evolves;
- Support cutting-edge research that advances our understanding of pain and addiction, leads to the development of new treatments, and identifies effective public health interventions to reduce opioid-related health harms; and
- Advance the practice of pain management to enable access to high-quality, evidence-based pain care that reduces the burden of pain for individuals, families, and society while also reducing the inappropriate use of opioids and opioid-related harms.