NIH Comes Out Swinging on Opioid Abuse With Anticipated $40.4 Million to Research Chronic Pain

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has announced the results of study into opioid abuse to see whether personalizing the epidemic could change prescribers' behavior, reports Forbes . The team first identified 170 people who had a fatal prescription opioid overdose over 12 months in one California county. They then located 861 doctors who had written at least one prescription to one of the deceased and sent them letters from the county's medical examiner notifying them of their beneficiary's overdose death, along with that beneficiary's name, address, and age. The study found opioid prescribing was almost 10 percent lower among the clinicians who received the letters versus a control group over three months. In addition, doctors who received the letters were 7 percent less likely to start a new beneficiary on opioids and wrote fewer prescriptions for high-dose opioids. NIH also announced the launch of the Acute to Chronic Pain Signatures (A2CPS) program to investigate the biological characteristics underlying the transition in some people from acute to chronic pain, via an anticipated $40.4 million budget allocated over four years. A2CPS is part of NIH's Helping to End Addiction Long-term Initiative, which has helped to almost double funding for research on opioid misuse, addiction, and pain from about $600 million in fiscal year 2016 to $1.1 billion in fiscal year 2018.