Abstract: Can Integrating Data from Multiple Service Systems Help Identify Justice-Involved Youth at Risk for Overdose and Other Adverse Events? (Society for Prevention Research 26th Annual Meeting)

Schedule:

Friday, June 1, 2018

Bryce (Hyatt Regency Washington, Washington, DC)

* noted as presenting author

Kristin E Schneider, BA, Doctoral Student, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD

Noa Krawczyk, BA, Doctoral Student, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD

Thomas M Richards, MSc, Technical Director, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD

Molly P Jarman, PhD, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA

Lindsey Ferris, MPH, CPH, PMP, Program Director, Chesapeake Regional Information System for our Patients, Columbia, MD

Klaus W Lemke, PhD, Biostatistician, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD

Jonathan P Weiner, DrPH, Professor, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD

Brendan Saloner, PhD, Assistant Professor, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD

Background: The United States is in the midst of a devastating opioid epidemic. While most attention to this issue has focused on adults, adolescents are also substantially affected by the opioid crisis. Justice involved youth are a particularly high-risk group for a variety of health problems, including substance use disorders, overdose, and accidental injuries. Linking records from multiple health and service systems may help effectively identify adolescents at risk for opioid related health events, and apply interventions to prevent overdoses, other injuries, and deaths.

Methods: We linked juvenile justice records from the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services with three other Maryland-wide health-system databases (2013-2016): Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) records, hospital admissions records, and death records from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. We used the linked data to understand what other health systems justice-involved youth frequently interact with, determine which datasets provide useful information for predicting health outcomes, and generate predictive risk models for adverse opioid events in this population. The adverse events of interest were opioid related hospital events and any deaths.

Results: 9,502 adolescents interacted with the juvenile justice system during the study period. Eighty percent of justice involved youth interacted with one or more additional health systems. Seventy-five percent were seen in emergency rooms or in inpatient hospital settings. During the study period, 35 of these adolescents died from a variety of causes. Justice involved youth commonly received prescriptions for one or more controlled substance in the PDMP (42%).

Conclusions: Linking data from multiple service systems is an important strategy for preemptively identifying adolescent characteristics that increase risk for adverse opioid outcomes. Most justice involved youth interact with multiple health systems. Given that justice involved youth tend to utilize many health services, the juvenile justice system provides an opportunity to implement public health interventions to prevent fatal and non-fatal opioid outcomes among high risk youth. Integrating data from multiple healthcare systems may be key to proactively identifying youth at the highest risk, in order to target interventions appropriately.

Abstract: Can Integrating Data from Multiple Service Systems Help Identify Justice-Involved Youth at Risk for Overdose and Other Adverse Events? (Society for Prevention Research 26th Annual Meeting)

470 Can Integrating Data from Multiple Service Systems Help Identify Justice-Involved Youth at Risk for Overdose and Other Adverse Events?