Date of Submission

Spring 2022

Academic Program

Psychology; Psychology

Project Advisor 1

Richard Lopez

Abstract/Artist's Statement

The Opioid Crisis has claimed the lives of over 1 million Americans since the 1990’s. Rates of fatal opioid overdoses have risen dramatically due to the corrupted nature of Purdue Pharma and the increased prevalence of highly potent synthesized opioids. In the United States, nearly 2.5million individuals need treatment while only a fraction of them are able to receive treatment. Unfortunately, due to high dropout rates, the effectiveness of current Opioid Use Disorder treatment cannot be properly evaluated. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, states have been tackling the Opioid Crisis by implementing treatment initiation and retention strategies. These strategies aim at targeting at-risk populations and providing them with long-term patient-oriented treatment, along with implementing a harm reduction philosophy to current treatment protocols. The implementation of these public health strategies have the possibility to dramatically decrease the current treatment gap and improve the effectiveness of current Opioid Use Disorder treatment. This is a major step forward in combating the crisis.

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Open Access

Creative Commons License

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