Opioid Marketing Is Tied to Opioid-Related Deaths

In a cross-sectional U.S. study, more direct-to-physician opioid marketing was associated with more opioid-related mortality.

Prescription opioids are involved in 40% of opioid overdoses in the U.S., and illicit opioid use often follows initial addiction to prescription opioids (NEJM JW Gen Med Dec 1 2018 and BMJ 2018; 362:k3537). In this county-level U.S. study, researchers used several sources of data to explore the association between opioid overdoses and amounts spent by pharmaceutical companies to market opioids to physicians from August 2013 to December 2016.

During the study period, a mean payment of US$588 was made to more than 67,000 physicians ($1.57 per 1000 population, across all counties). In analyses adjusted for sociodemographic variables, 1 standard deviation increases in marketing dollars per capita, in number of physicians receiving marketing doll…

Reviewing Author

Thomas L. Schwenk, MD

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Thomas L. Schwenk, MD

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Opioid Marketing Is Tied to Opioid-Related Deaths

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