Discussion

Introduction Describing the Opioid Abuse Epidemic Disease

Public health is the most important career which could help protect and improve the health issues for communities. It focuses on the prevention problems from happening or habitual through implementing education programs, recommending policies, administering services and conduction research (CDC Foundation, 2018). With the experiences that I have learned from B.S. Public Health at Walden University, I have observed too many topics involved with epidemic diseases. The topic of the Capstone Project for this course project is “Opioid Abuse Epidemic Disease.”

The learning outcomes from this above topic would entail the analysis of social, political, and economical problems that impact public health and healthcare transfer system internal and external of the United States. For example, the mistreatment and addiction of opioids lead to a serious crisis which affects public health as well as social and economic welfare. According to the research of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates the total cost economic burden of prescription opioid misuse approximately about $78.5 billion a year just in the United States alone (NIH, 2018). Other learning outcomes from this B.S Public Health that relate with the opioid abuse is analyze how behavioral, cultural, and environmental influences impact the status of personalities and populations. The good example is when the people addict to the opium their brain will change completely different. They could change their behavior by increasing of the sensation to make the addiction people feeling of pleasure when taking cocaine the high is follow by feelings of power, self–confidence, and enlarged energy (NIDA, 2014).

Analysis Opioid Abuse Impact the Social in Public Health

Opioid addiction has been reported as a hot topic that is occurs in each state, county, socioeconomic cluster, and ethnic group for the rapid increase public health problems in the United States. It also tremendously impacts social issues related in the public health. For example, there were 17,000 death annually with approximately 45 Americans overdosed each day from the opioid overuse in the United States. According to the research in Northern Minnesota, Carlton County has proficient an extreme growth in heroin use in the past 5 years with the number of individuals admitted for treatment of heroin abuse rise from 19 to 127 cases among the years of 2011 and 2013. According to the research, the community forums have an impact on reducing the burden of drug abuse, as this has been the case in neighboring St. Louis County, which presented several community forums in the spring of 2015 (Palombi, Varg, Bennett, Hender, Coughil & LaRue, 2017). This forum would help bring the community people more attention to the opium abuse crisis.

Analysis Opioid Abuse Impact the Political in Public Health

With the increases of opioid deaths related, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has become much more violent in its enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) with admiration to prescription drug wholesalers, physicians, pharmacists, and pharmacies which is allocate, recommend, and dispense controlled substances. For 2012, DEA is focusing expanded to include legal actions against large chain pharmacies, long-term care pharmacies, and prescription drug wholesalers, but in generally DEA focused its enforcement actions on independent community pharmacies more than retail chain or hospital pharmacies (Cobaugh, Gainor, Gaston, Kwong, Magnani, McPherson, & Krenzelok, 2014). There are 47 states of Prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs), which is an electronic databases generated and administered at the state level to collect data and information for opioids and other controlled substances as well as noncontrolled drugs with prospective for abuse. New Hampshire and Maryland are in the manner of implementing systems, and the District of Columbia has pending legislation. The state that is no pending legislation is Missouri. The aims of specific PDMPs vary from state to state, but in general these programs are designed to monitor prescribing and dispensing to individual patients, thereby providing treatment history information to the health professionals responsible for a patient’s care.

Analysis Opioid Abuse Impact the Economic Problems

Because the transition to Heroin from prescription opioids, The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) appraised that the number of Americans having used heroin in the past 30 days rose from 373,000 to 620,000 between 2007 and 2011 (Kanouse & Compton, 2015). Subsidizing to this increase are PO (by mouth) abusers who transition to heroin use, with the prescribed opioid serving as a “gateway drug” to the illicit one. The subsidizing increase of opioid by mouth abusers has been increase from the transition to heroin use, so prescribe opioid serving as “gateway drug” to the unlawful one. With this issue a series of young heroin users who use to begin as the by mouth abusers to switch to the cheaper heroin to save off withdrawal. According to the research, there were 45,49 in a syringe exchange program in King Country, Washington, 39% of heroin injectors reported having first been addicted to POs before heroin initiation. A study of intravenous drug users found 51, 52 were PO abuse first in Los Angeles and New York approximately 86% (Kanouse & Compton, 2015). Since good faith efforts are made to restrict PO availability in the United States, the heroin has increased the amount of availability. For example, oxycodone cost maybe $8 to &10 per 10 mg dose while the whole bag of heroin that containing 50 mg of heroin cost $9 to $ 10. The opioid abuse could impact the economic in many ways when the new policy has been change to become less stigmatized as it has been adopted by the new class of PO abusers. (Kanouse & Compton, 2015).

Conclusion

Since the opioid abuse had been effect many lives with many problems around the community in the United States, as professional health care we must came out with a better plan to help control this issue to prevent the opioid abuse. With the decreasing of opioid abuse every state, it would help especially the next generation from the suffering of the opium overdose. To make our voices heard, each individual community must have an association who is willing to advocate the health needs for others to promote the healthcare system. A good committee is always make the voices for the people needed to expand the necessary goals for the local public health to increase the awareness of the critical issue that already happened to people health and environment. Public health advocacy helped engage the communication between the health professionals and the local government to response and alert the society issue that could harm to the public health. Without the advocacy campaign, our health care systems might not in the advance right now. In order to make my public health advocacy success, we have to have the good plan with mission statement, goals, and objectives. We need to describe the short paragraph about the project purpose in the mission statement which could lead to the progress goals that expected outcome from the project. At the same time objective could help measure the step by step of the accomplishment to reach the goals of the project plan. The Community Forum on Heroin and Opioid Abuse was very excellent program which focus on the various group of community members. This program is using the survey to collect the result. There are 82.3% of people who attend said this forum is very useful and informative which highlight the most important to help the community discourse the drug abuse. (Palombi, Varg, Bennett, Hender, Coughil & LaRue, 2017). With similar programs, such as the Community Forum, existing more in the United States, it would be a better outcome for the opioid abuse to reduce the inappropriate dose for people in the community.

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