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A brand new research led by the College of South Florida reveals opioid management insurance policies could provide broader public well being advantages, together with decreasing cases of home violence. As policymakers proceed to grapple with the opioid epidemic, this research highlights the facility of analysis to tell efficient public coverage.
The analysis performed by USF doctoral scholar Minglu Solar and Andrei Barbos, affiliate professor of economics, underscores how opioid abuse could cause a robust ripple impact throughout society.
Printed in Well being Economics, the research analyzes the affect on the prevalence of home violence in Necessary Entry Prescription Drug Monitoring Packages. These opioid management applications require well being care suppliers to seek the advice of a centralized database earlier than prescribing opioids, serving to forestall sufferers from acquiring a number of prescriptions from a number of medical doctors. Within the early 2010s, states started passing legal guidelines that mandated using these databases after the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention and different businesses mentioned they have been a key instrument to fight misuse of opioids.
“The staggered rollout of these programs across the country offered a unique opportunity to analyze their effects over time and across different regions, which allowed us to isolate the effects of these opioid control programs on the prevalence of domestic violence from other factors, such as economic cycles, concurrent policy changes or broader crime trends,” Barbos mentioned.
With information from the Nationwide Incident-Based mostly Reporting System, they compiled stories from 31 states between 2007 and 2019 to create managed fashions for dynamic variables together with demographics, revenue, unemployment, well being standing, insurance coverage protection and overlapping laws, reminiscent of legalized marijuana.
Solar and Barbos discovered that these opioid management applications not solely curb misuse however contributed to a ten% discount within the prevalence of straightforward assaults, which account for practically 75% of home violence incidents within the information. Easy assaults are typically outlined as an try to trigger bodily hurt to a different particular person that doesn’t contain a weapon or end in critical harm.
The impact was strongest in states with the very best opioid prescription charges. Based on the CDC, southern states constantly exhibit greater charges—reinforcing the connection between opioid entry and home violence.
“Earlier public health literature documented a correlation between opioid consumption and domestic violence, but correlation does not imply a causal relationship,” Barbos mentioned. “This article establishes a causal relationship and provides policymakers with evidence of an additional positive spillover of opioid control policies, which may also be relevant for the policy design surrounding the current fentanyl crisis.”
Extra data:
Andrei Barbos et al, Opioid Management Insurance policies Can Additionally Cut back Home Violence, Well being Economics (2025). DOI: 10.1002/hec.4960
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College of South Florida
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Opioid management legal guidelines linked to 10% drop in home violence instances (2025, April 19)
retrieved 19 April 2025
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