“A little over half the country considers prescription painkiller addiction a major problem for the nation, but say it doesn’t rise to the level of national emergency, a new report in the New England Journal of Medicine notes.
The journal article examined data from seven national polls from 2016 and 2017 to paint a portrait of how the public believes the opioid epidemic should be addressed.
“Many of the findings may surprise people who have been following this issue in professional journals and the media,” Robert Blendon and John Benson, from Harvard’s public health school, wrote in the article.
About 53 percent of respondents surveyed said addiction to prescription painkillers was a major problem in the U.S., but not a national emergency, while 28 percent believe the crisis is a national emergency, according to the report, which cites a Politico/Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health poll from November.
Most of the public — about 41 percent — see Trump’s proposed program on the opioid epidemic as about right, whereas 27 percent believe it does too little and 10 percent think it does too much, according to that same poll.”
Read more at: http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/367489-more-than-half-think-painkillers-a-major-problem-but-not-a-national
Source: TheHill.com – January 4, 2018
See related article: Who’s Responsible for Ending the $500 Billion Opioid Crisis? – 1/4/17 available at: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2018/01/04/Should-Government-Do-More-Address-500-Billion-Opioid-Crisis
