新澳彩开奖结果

新澳彩开奖结果 researchers and alumnus examine New York鈥檚 opioid epidemic

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As a psychiatrist in central New York, Richard Brown 鈥79 has seen firsthand the devastation wrought by the opioid crisis.

鈥淥ne week, I had three people who had lost relatives,鈥 said Brown, who practices through the Bassett Healthcare Network in Cooperstown.

Despite seeing the brutal evidence of the epidemic, however, Brown felt frustrated by the lack of information about what鈥檚 causing the crisis 鈥 and whether it鈥檚 getting better or worse. He reached out to 新澳彩开奖结果鈥檚 , which matches university researchers with community partners to study issues of regional importance. The institute connected Brown with geography professors and , who agreed to help drill down into the data to better understand what is emerging as a health crisis. They enlisted geography student fellows from the institute 鈥 Lydia Ulrich 鈥17 and Jonathan Santiago 鈥18 鈥 to help gather and interpret temporal data and also conduct geographic systems analysis. The team also consulted with Michael Komosinski 鈥11 who, as an Upstate Institute fellow, conducted population data analysis at Bassett.

The group decided to take a closer look at the Internet System for Tracking Over-Prescribing (I-STOP), a 2013 New York State initiative mandating that practitioners use electronic prescriptions and check an online database before issuing one to a patient. Although the program aims to cut down on opioid abuse, some have worried that cutting down access might have the unintended consequence of increasing illegal heroin use. The researchers address the issue in a paper just published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

鈥淚t was a clear and straight forward research question: What is the effect of I-STOP on opioid morbidity?鈥 Kraly said. 鈥淟ike a lot of research, however, the results raised more questions.鈥 Looking at I-STOP data, they found that while the number of prescriptions for opioids decreased after the implementation, the total amount of opioids prescribed stayed the same, implying doctors were prescribing higher dosages. Even so, the number of opioid-related deaths in New York have leveled off since 2013. 鈥淭hat is a promising sign in light of the increasing national trend in prescription opioid morbidity,鈥 Kraly said.

At the same time, the researchers saw a steady increase in heroin deaths starting in 2010, before the start of the I-STOP program. That suggests that other factors, such as decreasing heroin prices, might be driving it. 鈥淚-STOP didn鈥檛 cause the heroin epidemic, because clearly it had started before then,鈥 Brown said.

Despite that conclusion, the program doesn鈥檛 seem to have succeeded in decreasing opioid deaths either. 鈥淚t is necessary but not sufficient,鈥 Brown said. 鈥淚t can help identify rogue prescribers or people with aberrant behavior who go to multiple emergency rooms, but you can鈥檛 rest on that.鈥

Brown has pushed Bassett to adopt a multi-tiered effort to deal with the epidemic, including better communication between doctors and mental health workers, programs for safe disposal of prescription drugs, and non-opioid alternatives for managing pain. 鈥淭his is the biggest epidemic of our time, and we need to be doing everything we can to address it,鈥 he said. 鈥淚 hope we can implement more effective treatment and radically lower mortality.鈥

The researchers鈥 next step is to look geographically at patterns of opioid prescriptions and deaths 鈥 examining, for example, how proximity to prescribing doctors, heroin treatment clinics, and state borders affect prescriptions and overdoses. They鈥檒l also examine whether opioid overdoses are fewer in the area covered by Bassett鈥檚 network, as an early indication of whether their strategy is working.

While there are still more questions than answers in the opioid epidemic, the university researchers and doctors hope they can find better solutions by working together. 鈥淭his is what the relationship between higher education and community organizations can be,鈥 Kraly said. 鈥淥ur students gain superb experience working shoulder to shoulder with health professionals at Bassett to build evidence-based health programs. It鈥檚 an exciting example of how 新澳彩开奖结果 can contribute in partnership with the people who are working to serve people in our communities.鈥