PM - Decrease Health Costs & Employment Problems due to Opioid Misuse

PM - Decrease Health Costs & Employment Problems due to Opioid Misuse

Return to Decrease Health Costs & Employment Problems due to Opioid Misuse

Potential Measures

Health Costs:

• Prescription opioid overdose, abuse, and dependence carries high costs for American society, with an estimated total economic burden of $78.5 billion.
  • Total spending for health care and substance abuse was over $28 billion, and $26 billion of this was covered by insurance.
• Reduced productive hours and lost production for incarcerated individuals estimated to be $20 billion.

Employment Problems:

• People who were unemployed reported the highest odds of misusing prescription opioids at 7%.
• Those out of the workforce reported the highest odds of misusing prescription stimulants at 2%.
• Using prescription opioids for recreational purposes alone costs the U.S. about $42 billion in lost productivity, $8.2 billion in criminal justice costs, and $1 billion in medical complications.

As you add potential measures, please include a description, calculations for the measure and possible data sources.

Measure		Description		Calculations		Data Source
Number of individuals unemployed due to opioid abuse.		Employee's opioid misuse contributes to performance, health, and theft problems and may impact employment status. (Further research can be done to analyze number of people fired vs. number of people that personally decided to take a leave of absence).
Dollars spent on opioid abuse treatment programs.		Amount of money spent on recovery programs(in-patient and out-patient), Medication-Assisted Treatment(MAT), etc.

Potential Data Sources

Site		Org		Date Added		Comments
Columbia University				67/2017
Science Daily				6/8/2017

---

1. #***** [1]>>
2. [2]
3. [3]
4. [4]
5. [5]
6. #***** [6]