This is a report from a convening of experts by the United Hospital Fund that describes in detail the ripple effect of the opioid crisis on families and communities. Recommendations are made to address the intergenerational and community-level impacts of opioid use disorder. Programs targeting these negative impacts are also highlighted in the report. 

This is an academic paper that gives an overview on the process of civil commitments for substance use disorders (SUD), which has been proposed by several states as a tool to combat the opioid crisis. A civil commitment is a policy that can be used by a court to force a person into treatment for SUD. There is a focus on the policy in Massachusetts. 

Community health centers play an important role in efforts to address the opioid crisis. In many communities, they are on the front lines of this public health emergency and have become an important source of treatment for those with opioid use disorder (OUD). This issue brief presents findings from a 2018 survey of community health centers on health center activities related to the prevention and treatment of OUD.

This publicly-available presentation from the Maine Rural Health Research Center (author John Gale) focuses on prevention, treatment, and recovery strategies that rural communities, particularly rural hospitals, can engage in to address the opioid crisis. Additionally, examples of existing programs for each strategy are discussed in the presentation. 

This brief document from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service provides a good synopsis of new legislation on legal requirements for prescribing buprenorphine via telemedicine.  

This Council of Economic Advisors report from 2017 estimates the economic cost of opioid overdose deaths using conventional economic estimates for valuing life routinely used by U.S. Federal agencies. It also adjusts for underreporting of opioids in overdose deaths, includes heroin-related fatalities, and incorporates nonfatal costs of opioid misuse. 

This is a report from the Police Executive Research Forum that provides recommendations on how law enforcement can better address the opioid crisis in their communities.  

This is a report from the National Center on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare that provides an overview of two models of support for families—support by peers with lived experience of substance use disorders and sometimes child welfare involvement, and support by professionally-trained recovery specialists. The brief also highlights implementation considerations gleaned from interviews with four programs that have demonstrated positive child welfare and recovery outcomes for families.

This is an academic paper that contrasts media coverage of white non-medical opioid users with that of black and brown heroin users to show how divergent representations lead to different public and policy responses. Historically differential policy responses are discussed between the crack epidemic of the 1980's and the opioid crisis. The need for racial equity and justice is highlighted.  

This is an academic paper that examines the design, early implementation, and results of the Washington State Hub and Spoke Model, built on prior approaches to increase capacity and improve the delivery system for medication treatment and support services for opioid use disorder.

This is an academic paper that gives an overview of an interprofessional inpatient addiction care team in an urban, safety-net hospital in San Francisco. Barriers to implementation and lessons learned are discussed. 

This is an informative report from the Bipartisan Policy Center that gives an overview of federal opioid funding, and where the money is going in the continuum of care. It also gives a breakdown by state with overviews of several selected states.