Question

What health, Economic, Social and Lost Productivity Costs did the Opioid Crisis in the US cause?

Answer 1

Ans. The misuse of and addiction to opioids - including prescription pain relievers, heroin, and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl- is a serious national crises that affects public health as well as social and economic welfare. The Centers for Disease Control nd Prevention estimates that the totl economic burden of prescription opioid misuse alone in the US is $78.5 billion a year.

In the late 1990s, pharmacetical companies reassured the medical community that patients would not become addicted to prescription opioid pain relievers, and healthcare providers began to prescribe them at greater rates. This subsequntly led to widerspread diversion and misuse of these medications.

There are intuitive casual connection between poor health and structural factors such as poverty, lack of opportunity, and substandard living and working condition. If one has a good economic status, using of alchahole like substances are high because they have the purchasing capacity.  To overcome  the unemployment problem  stress, the addiction of alchahole like substance is high. Poverty and substance use problems operate synergically, at the extreme reinforced by phychiatric diorders and unstable housing. The US health care system is unprepared to meet the demands elucidated by a structural fastors analysis. Even at the patient level, the intersection of social disadvantage, isolation, and pain requires meaningful clinical attention that is difficult to deliver in high-throughput primary care. Overprescribing was not the sole cause of the problem. While increased opioid prescribing for chronic pain has been a vector of the opioid epidemic, researchers agree that such structural facrtors as lack of econoic opportunity, poor working condition, and eroded social capital in depressed communities, accompanied by hopelessness and despair, are root cause of the misuse of opioids and other substances. The devststing consequences of the opioid are far reaching in the US, impacting public health as well as social and economic welfare.