ReviewHarm reduction journal2017
The North American opioid epidemic: current challenges and a call for treatment as prevention.
Review in Harm reduction journal, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 43 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
43 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 94 citations in OpenAlex.
- Harms associated with injecting in public spaces: a global systematic review and meta-analysis.The International journal on drug policy · 2025Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Opioid prescription patterns in Germany and the global opioid epidemic: Systematic review of available evidence.PloS one · 2019Pooled it
- Opioid Use in Athletes: A Systematic Review.Sports healthPooled it
- Exploring Non-Pharmacological Interventions as Part of Multimodal Management to Prevent Opioid Misuse in Adults Prescribed Opioids for Chronic Pain.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Review
- Post-discharge opioid prescribing after surgery in the United States: a population-based analysis of specialty variation and prescribing intensity.Lancet regional health. Americas · 2026Article
- Exploring potential underestimates in fatal overdose mortality across major metropolitan areas in Mexico between 2005 and 2019.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Income-Based Disparities in Opioid Prescription Dispensing Among Public Drug Plan Beneficiaries in Canada from 2010 to 2018: A Population-Based and Sex-Stratified Retrospective Study.Drugs - real world outcomes · 2025Article
- Biased Opioid Receptor Agonists: Balancing Analgesic Efficacy and Side-Effect Profiles.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Patterns of pharmacotherapy for bipolar disorder: A GBC survey.Bipolar disorders · 2024Article
- The Effects of Opioid Dependency Use on Postoperative Spinal Surgery Outcomes: A Review of the Available Literature.Anesthesiology and pain medicine · 2023Review
- Disease-related stigma among people who inject drugs in Toronto amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.Drug and alcohol dependence reports · 2023Article
- First-line opioid agonist treatment as prevention against assisting others in initiating injection drug use: A longitudinal cohort study of people who inject drugs in Vancouver, Canada.Drug and alcohol dependence reports · 2023Article
- Preceptors' preparedness to teach about substance and opioid use disorder: a qualitative study.BMC medical education · 2022Article
- Communication between patients, peers, and care providers through a mobile health intervention supporting medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder.Patient education and counseling · 2022Article
- Addressing injecting related risks among people who inject both opioids and stimulants: Findings from an Australian survey of people who inject drugs.Addictive behaviors reports · 2022Article
- Six-month outcomes of the HOPE smartphone application designed to support treatment with medications for opioid use disorder and piloted during an early statewide COVID-19 lockdown.Addiction science & clinical practice · 2022Article
- Mortality among people who inject drugs: a prospective cohort followed over three decades in Baltimore, MD, USA.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2022Article
- Attitudes and Associated Demographic Factors Contributing towards the Abuse of Illicit Drugs: A Cross-Sectional Study from Health Care Students in Saudi Arabia.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2022Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
There is a need for creative, public health-oriented solutions to the increasingly intractable problems associated with the North American opioid epidemic. This epidemic is a fundamentally continental problem, as routes of migration, drug demand, and drug exchange link the USA with Mexico and Canada. The challenges faced throughout North America include entrenched prescribing practices of opioid medications, high costs and low availability of medication-assisted treatment (MAT), and policy approaches that present substantial barriers to care.We advocate for the scale up of a low-threshold treatment model for MAT that incorporates the best practices in addiction treatment. Such a model would remove barriers to care through widespread treatment availability and affordability and also a policy of decriminalization. Given that MAT reduces the frequency of drug injecting among opioid injectors, this treatment model should also be guided by an understanding of the socially communicable nature of injection drug use, such that increasing MAT availability may also prevent the spread of injecting practices to individuals at risk of transitions from non-injection to injection drug use. To that end, the "Treatment as Prevention" model employed to respond to the individual- and population-level risks for HIV/AIDS prevention could be adapted to efforts to halt the North American opioid epidemic.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.