26A LATE BREAKING ABSTRACT Prevention Science Perspectives on the Opioid Epidemic: New Research on Systems and Future Opportunities

The opioid epidemic has necessarily become a priority for action throughout the country, with great implications for public health for families and governmental and non-governmental systems. The Council of Economic Advisors indicated this past fall that recent data show that the cost of the epidemic was roughly $504 billion in 2015 (2.8 percent of the GDP for that year). Local, state and the federal governments must plan for services and programs that can help address the growing problems across communities. The process of addressing needs and providing care challenges systems ranging from healthcare to education to criminal justice to child protective services. While immediate attention is needed for the current epidemic, prevention science plays a key role in mitigating problems from emerging related to opioid misuse and abuse in the future.

In this presentation, we will describe new findings from current efforts to further understand patterns of misuse of prescription opioids that can help inform prevention. First, we will present results from an investigation of the economic costs to states of prescription opioid misuse. Results come from a 3-month multi-disciplinary project carried out in the beginning of 2018 aimed to help researchers and states assess damages and better understand how some resources may be recouped and reallocated to support those currently in need. We will present the full range of costs indicated by project models across various public systems that burden state budgets.

We next will discuss the potential and realized value of leveraging administrative data resources already in the hands of government to better inform intervention program design, evaluate success and seek the optimum allocation of scarce resources to combat this epidemic. Utilizing government-owned, closed-source, open-source and private datasets collected administratively through the normal implementation of government programs, significant inferences can be reached as patterns emerge among study cohorts. These systematic characteristics can be invaluable in ascertaining predictors of misuse in vulnerable populations, or determining resilience factors. The development and utilization of sophisticated integrated data systems (IDS) has significant implications to prevention science and the study of systems.

Finally, we will discuss the proven value of systematic and universal preventive interventions as efficient responses to the opioid epidemic, in particular the evaluation of PROSPER (PROmoting School-community-university Partnerships to Enhance Resilience). PROSPER serves as a scientifically-proven delivery system that facilitates sustained evidence-based programs that reduce risky youth behaviors, enhance positive youth development and strengthen families. The positive outcomes of PROSPER delivery to reduced opioid misuse will be discussed.