Author : The Council The Council of Economic Advisers
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781071453032
Total Pages : 50 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (53 download)
Book Synopsis The Role of Opioid Prices in the Evolving Opioid Crisis by : The Council The Council of Economic Advisers
Download or read book The Role of Opioid Prices in the Evolving Opioid Crisis written by The Council The Council of Economic Advisers and published by . This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) has previously estimated that the annual economic cost of the opioid crisis is substantially higher than previously thought, at over half a trillion dollars in 2015. In order to better understand the spread of the crisis and mitigate its large costs, it is crucial to understand all the factors underlying it. In this report, the CEA describes and analyzes two separate waves of the crisis--the first wave, from 2001 to 2010, which was characterized by growing overdose deaths involving the misuse of prescription opioids; and the second wave, from 2010 to 2016, which was characterized by growing overdose deaths involving illicitly manufactured opioids (heroin and fentanyl). We find that in the first wave, prescription opioid prices fell in conjunction with expanded government health care coverage and a rising market share of generic opioids. In the second wave, supply expansions of illicit opioids reduced their prices.This report also attempts to quantify the effect of prescription opioid price changes on the number of overdose deaths in the first wave and finds that falling prices may have been an important factor. In the second wave, medical and public health steps implemented to reduce prescription opioid use disorder may have led to increased demand for illicitly manufactured opioids, with supply expansions in the market for illicit opioids potentially exacerbating the rise of overdose deaths involving those opioids.