Opioid addiction research program to improve prescribing practices and reduce overdose

Canada is amid an opioid crisis, with six or seven deaths a day due to opioid overdose. Prescription opioid misuse can also transition to illicit opiate and intravenous drug use, substantially increasing the risk for overdose and blood-borne infections. Rates of overdose death due to counterfeit fentanyl have also risen and represent a growing crisis in most regions in Canada, with British Columbia (BC) being particularly hard hit. Half of the 800 anticipated overdose deaths for 2016 in BC are expected to involve fentanyl.

Dr. Fairbairn’s research will:

• Address the effectiveness of a randomized controlled trial to evaluate a designated opioid prescriber intervention using BC’s centralized prescription network to reduce inappropriate opioid dispensation and overdose risk.
• Inform overdose prevention strategies by characterizing the inter-relationships between medication prescribing patterns and patterns of illicit drug use.
• Evaluate the longitudinal impacts of new overdose prevention initiatives and addiction treatment guidelines on overdose outcomes.

This research directly responds to BC’s recent declaration of a public health emergency, Health Canada’s urgent call to develop strategies to tackle the overdose epidemic, and the global challenge of prescription opioid abuse by generating evidence for safer prescribing practices and informing and broadening the evidence base for the treatment of opioid addiction.