Tracking FY2019 federal funding to combat the opioid crisis

Tracking FY2019 federal funding to combat the opioid crisis

Collection:
Health Policy and Services Research
Contributor(s):
Bipartisan Policy Center, issuing body.
Publication:
Washington, D.C. : Bipartisan Policy Center, September 2020
Language(s):
English
Format:
Text
Subject(s):
Opiate Overdose -- mortality
Opioid Epidemic -- prevention & control
Opioid Epidemic -- statistics & numerical data
COVID-19
United States
Genre(s):
Technical Report
Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in one of the most significant public health crises of the last century, but there is also increasing concern about the effect of the pandemic on other health issues, including the opioid use disorder epidemic. Reports from states and counties across the country suggest opioid-involved overdose deaths are rising in 2020. This is on top of provisional data suggesting overall drug overdose death rates climbed by 4.9% in 2019, resulting in over 71,000 deaths and erasing the slight decline observed in 2018. Synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl, continue to be the main driver of opioid-involved deaths. The nation is also seeing an increase in methamphetamine and cocaine use. Multiple substances, including methamphetamine and cocaine, are increasingly being found along with opioids in overdose death toxicology reports--commonly referred to as polysubstance-involved deaths. As drug use patterns shift, so do the demographics of overdose deaths; we continue to see increases in rates of overdose deaths in communities of color. This is especially concerning in Black and Latino communities that have also experienced higher rates of COVID-19 infection and death rates. While considerable attention has focused on the drivers of the opioid epidemic, less attention has been paid to how the federal government is allocating financial resources to address the issue; the appropriate allocation of responsibility among federal, state, and local entities; where the funding is going; and whether it is being targeted to communities most affected by the epidemic. In this report, the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) tracks spending targeted to address the opioid epidemic across the federal government for fiscal year 2019 and provides insight into how funds are being spent at the state and county-level to address the opioid epidemic. BPC also selected six states--Ohio, Arizona, Tennessee, Louisiana, New Hampshire, Washington--diverse in many aspects and performed case-studies elucidating more detailed state and county-level opioid spending data. In FY2019, total federal opioid funding was $7.6 billion, up from $7.4 billion in FY2018, an increase of 3.2%. This is a smaller increase than seen in previous years when total federal opioid funding increased 124% between FY2017 and FY2018. Two-thirds ($5.3 billion) of the funding was disbursed by the Department of Health and Human Services, with nearly two-thirds of that funding ($3.7 billion) administered by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Similar to FY2018, three-quarters of FY2019 funding went to treatment, recovery, and prevention efforts; the remaining dollars went to research, interdiction, law enforcement, and other criminal justice activities. Notably, total interdiction dollars rose from 5% to 9%, representing a significant increase in funds dedicated to disrupting the trafficking of illicit opioids, particularly illicitly manufactured fentanyl. In addition, while this analysis focused only on annually appropriated (discretionary) funding, Medicaid coverage of medications for opioid use disorder (buprenorphine, naltrexone) and for the opioid overdose antidote naloxone increased by 15% to nearly $1.6 billion in 2019. Opioid spending in the six states studied totaled nearly $820 million in 2019, or 11% of all federal spending that year. While all federal spending increased 3.3% between 2018 and 2019, spending in the six states studied increased 12.8%. Nationwide federal opioid funding averaged $25 per capita in 2019; for the six states reviewed, per capita spending was similar at $24.
Copyright:
The National Library of Medicine believes this item to be in the public domain. (More information)
Extent:
1 online resource (1 PDF file (148 pages))
Illustrations:
Illustrations
NLM Unique ID:
101778540 (See catalog record)
Permanent Link:
http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101778540