Trends in engagement in the cascade of care for opioid use disorder, Vancouver, Canada, 2006 –2016

North America is facing a public health crisis from opioid-related morbidity and mortality. More than 42,000 people in the United States (U.S.) died from an opioid overdose in 2016, and it is estimated that over 2.5 million Americans have an opioid use disorder (OUD) (Seth et al., 2018). In Canada, some jurisdictions are facing similar overdose epidemics, largely as a result of illicitly manufactured fentanyl and related analogues (BC Coroners Service, 2018; Gomes et al., 2017). For example, in British Columbia (BC) there were over 1400 illicit drug overdose deaths in 2017 (30.1 deaths per 100,000 individuals), an almost three-fold increase from 2015 (BC Coroners Service, 2018).
Source: Drug and Alcohol Dependence - Category: Addiction Authors: Tags: Full length article Source Type: research