CNN: Opioid epidemic spilling over onto roads, study says
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/15/health/opioid-traffic-accidents-study/index.html
Excerpt:
(CNN)Patients who are prescribed opioids and the clinicians who prescribe themhave more to be concerned about than steadily rising rates of opioid overdoses, according to a new study.
The research, published Friday in the journal JAMA Network Open, shows that drivers who are on prescribed opioids are twice as likely to be in deadly two-vehicle accidents than those not using the drugs. As the United States struggles with an opioid epidemic, these findings could affect health care providers' decision-making processes, the authors say.
Statistics from the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention show that although the rate of opioids prescribed per 100 people decreased from 72.4% to 66.5% from 2006 to 2016, 214 million opioid prescriptions are written each year.
Study author Dr. Guohua Li, a professor of epidemiology and anesthesiology and the founding director of the Center for Injury Epidemiology and Prevention at Columbia University, said he and co-author Stanford Chihuri, a staff associate in Columbia's Department of Anesthesiology, were motivated to take on this research because "the ongoing opioid epidemic has spilled over to the nation's roadways, with deadly consequences."
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