Strengths and weaknesses of existing data sources to support research to address the opioids crisis

Smart, Rosanna; Kase, Courtney Ann; Taylor, Erin Audrey; Lumsden, Susan; Smith, Scott; Stein, Bradley D.

doi:10.1016/j.pmedr.2019.101015

Cited by 30 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 240 publications

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“…A policy or program environment study analyzes the landscape of policies, programs, or other items and focuses on the range of these things. Indeed, a wide array of items may be the focus of an environment study, including policies (e.g., school health and wellness policies; Mihaly et al, 2018), programs (e.g., integrated services programs for families and children; Sama-Miller et al, 2017), program practices (e.g., suicide prevention strategies; Ramchand et al, 2019), data types or sources (e.g., data used in pain management; Smart et al, 2020), scales or measures (e.g., clinical performance measures; Anderson et al, 2018), and needs within a population (e.g., needs of military families; Sims et al, 2018). Unlike content studies, which rely solely on document analysis, environment studies commonly rely on elicitation techniques such as interviews and focus groups, often in conjunction with document analysis.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Qualitative Methods in Health Policy and Systems Research: A Framework for Study Planning

Fisher

Hamer

2020

Qual Health Res

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Qualitative methodologies and methods are commonly used in health policy and systems research but have not been extensively characterized. We describe how qualitative approaches are used within the field and present a framework to aid researchers in study planning. To achieve these aims, we conducted a scoping literature review of 1 year of selected health policy and systems research and then coded publications based on their primary analytical foci. Four core themes emerged: policy or program content, an analysis of the substance of policies or program documents; policy or program environment, a study of the landscape of policies or programs; policy or program implementation, a study of the planned or actual execution of a policy or program; and organization or system operations, a study of the structure or function of health organizations or systems. We provide guidance on utilizing the framework and adhering to qualitative best practices during the process.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Qualitative Methods in Health Policy and Systems Research: A Framework for Study Planning

Fisher

Hamer

2020

Qual Health Res

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“…Additionally, although data is currently available to some limited extent (e.g. the numbers of dispensed prescriptions and fatal overdoses reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), there is a lack of data for essential mechanisms (see [13] for more information about data challenges in opioids research). Through calibrating a model to the available data, unknown variables of the model can be estimated, which helps understand the behaviour of previously unknown mechanisms.…”

Section: Simulation Modelling and Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

The opioid crisis: need for systems science research

Jalali

Botticelli

Hwang³

et al. 2020

Health Res Policy Sys

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The opioid epidemic in the United States has had a devastating impact on millions of people as well as on their families and communities. The increased prevalence of opioid misuse, use disorder and overdose in recent years has highlighted the need for improved public health approaches for reducing the tremendous harms of this illness. In this paper, we explain and call for the need for more systems science approaches, which can uncover the complexities of the opioid crisis, and help evaluate, analyse and forecast the effectiveness of ongoing and new policy interventions. Similar to how a stream of systems science research helped policy development in infectious diseases and obesity, more systems science research is needed in opioids.

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“… 14 , 15 The rapidly changing dynamics of this crisis make it a particularly challenging problem to understand in its entirety. 16 The uncertainty of how policies or interventions might impact behaviors and harms, as well as the lack of comprehensive data to fully describe the heterogeneous agents involved, 17 necessitate the development of simulation approaches that project and explore policy outcomes before such policies are tested in expensive and resource-intensive clinical trials or ad hoc policy implementation. Simulation modeling accomplishes this by drawing on disparate data sources, including qualitative structural data on system functioning, to help answer “what if” policy questions through policy projections.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 34 − 37 These teams face the same data challenges that all opioid researchers do and that have been well documented in the literature. 17 , 38 − 41 For instance, some of the data systems that have been used to monitor opioid misuse have been terminated or significantly modified in recent years (e.g., the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring System and the Drug Abuse Warning Network), and national data on the number of people with OUD who access evidence-based treatment such as medications for OUD are nonexistent, let alone data on treatment outcomes. 42 Notwithstanding these significant shared challenges among all opioid researchers, data needs for simulation models in particular have not been documented systematically.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Data Needs in Opioid Systems Modeling: Challenges and Future Directions

Jalali

Ewing

Bannister

et al. 2021

American Journal of Preventive Medicine

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Introduction: The opioid crisis is a pervasive public health threat in the U.S. Simulation modeling approaches that integrate a systems perspective are used to understand the complexity of this crisis and analyze what policy interventions can best address it. However, limitations in currently available data sources can hamper the quantification of these models. Methods: To understand and discuss data needs and challenges for opioid systems modeling, a meeting of federal partners, modeling teams, and data experts was held at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in April 2019. This paper synthesizes the meeting discussions and interprets them in the context of ongoing simulation modeling work. Results: The current landscape of national-level quantitative data sources of potential use in opioid systems modeling is identified, and significant issues within data sources are discussed. Major recommendations on how to improve data sources are to: maintain close collaboration among modeling teams, enhance data collection to better fit modeling needs, focus on bridging the most crucial information gaps, engage in direct and regular interaction between modelers and data experts, and gain a clearer definition of policymakers' research questions and policy goals. Conclusions: This article provides an important step in identifying and discussing data challenges in opioid research generally and opioid systems modeling specifically. It also identifies opportunities for systems modelers and government agencies to improve opioid systems models.

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Strengths and weaknesses of existing data sources to support research to address the opioids crisis

Cited by 30 publications

References 240 publications

Qualitative Methods in Health Policy and Systems Research: A Framework for Study Planning

Qualitative Methods in Health Policy and Systems Research: A Framework for Study Planning

The opioid crisis: need for systems science research

Data Needs in Opioid Systems Modeling: Challenges and Future Directions

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