Addressing the Opioid Epidemic

By Lisa Bilich, RDH, MS, CHSE

The COVID-19 pandemic became a public health crisis in March 2020, exacerbating an already present crisis in substance use disorders (SUD). Social isolation, financial instability, anxiety, loss of social safety nets, and disruption of addiction treatments contributed to an increase in SUDs and overdoses.1 In the United States, the number of overdoses increased 30% from 2019 to 2020, with synthetic opioids—predominately illicitly manufactured fentanyl (IMF)— causing the most deaths.2 The incidence of opioid use disorder also skyrocketed during the pandemic, as did the rate of untreated mental illness.

* References can be found in the original article via the link below.
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