This is a report from the National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP) that discusses how child-serving agencies are responding to the opioid crisis. It includes states’ strategies to support young children and families impacted by opioid use disorder (OUD), available state and federal funding sources for these initiatives, and key considerations for states working to improve services and outcomes for this vulnerable population. 

This is a report from the National Governors Association that describes strategies that governors are using to address the dual crises of the opioid epidemic and the coronavirus pandemic in the face of a restricted state budget.  

This is a toolkit from the National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP) that shares innovations, resources, and lessons learned from five state teams (Alabama, Illinois, South Dakota, Virginia, and Wisconsin) that are working to strengthen the capacity of their Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), such as community health centers, to deliver substance use disorder care. Program models are discussed that overcome the unique challenges of FQHCs. There is a special section on COVID-19.

This is a toolkit from the American Medical Association and Manatt Health that provides actionable resources that states can use to take specific actions in policy areas of non-opioid approaches to pain patients, access to evidence-based and comprehensive treatment, and harm reduction. 

This is a report from the Urban Institute that uses Medicaid State Drug Utilization Data to assess buprenorphine maintenance treatment in Medicaid from 2011-2018. Although buprenorphine prescriptions increased during the study period, there were large variations between states, with nonexpansion states having lower prescriptions. 

This report displays which states continue to allow tele-health prescriptions for medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) through an interactive map. Each state is assigned a color based on whether or not the state explicitly allows tele-health prescriptions. It provides a snapshot of current tele-health MOUD state policy 18 months into the pandemic. 

This report recommends that states implement measures to track treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD) as a means to optimize utilization of resources. It identifies eight core measures including OUD diagnoses, provider availability, treatment initiation, use of medications for opioid use disorder, and post treatment outcomes. 

This is a toolkit by the American Hospital Association (AHA) that provides resources to hospitals and health systems to share with clinicians and patients to enhance partnerships within their communities. It also highlights several innovative programs with links to them.  

This is a report from the Mental Health Commission of Canada that summarizes an 18-month project on opioid use disorder (OUD) stigma and gives a scoping literature review as well as the results of key informant interviews and focus groups involving first responders, persons with lived experience of substance and/or opioid use, policymakers, and other service providers. 

This study develops a typology of the stigma related to opioid use, showing how multiple dimensions of stigma continue to fundamentally hinder the response to the crisis.

The paper explains how public stigma is driven by stereotypes about people with opioid use disorders, such as their perceived dangerousness or perceived moral failings, which translate into negative attitudes toward people with opioid use disorders. Additionally, it explains that enacted stigma describes the behavioral manifestations of public stigma, including discrimination and social distancing. Finally, the study emphasizes that public and enacted stigma, in turn, lead to the delivery of suboptimal care and undermine access to treatment and harm reduction services.

This in an annual summit sponsored by National Academy of Medicine and Shatterproof that brings together stakeholders to discuss the negative impact of stigma on people with substance use disorders and elevate action-oriented strategies to address and eliminate the harms caused by stigma. More information from the 2021 summit can be found here and the 2022 summit can be found here. 

This is an academic paper that provides a commentary on the role that stigma plays in substance use disorder, how it manifests, and the evidence base for combating it.