Assessing the Impact of Policy Interventions for Problematic Prescription Opioid Use and Related Harms at a Population Level

Severe and chronic pain (SCP) is a major chronic disease problem in Canada. While prescription opioid analgesic (POA)-based SCP care can be effective and has been expanded in Canada in recent years, POA-related harms and problems - e.g., POA-related misuse, morbidity and mortality - has become a major public health and policy problem in North America. In these contexts, several key POA control or policy interventions are currently being implemented or developed in Canada, which provide a unique and urgent opportunity to systematically assess their impacts on population. Systematically evaluating these interventions is crucial, since interventions to restrict POA-related harms and problems - e.g., by more strictly monitoring or reducing POA-use in SCP care - may result in severe 'collateral harms', e.g., by undermining or compromising SCP care availability or quality. This study will assess three current policy intervention initiatives by measuring their impact, both over-time and across jurisdictions (e.g., provinces) in Canada, on the basis of multiple data indicators and sources. The investigators will furthermore work with a group of three preeminent 'knowledge translation' collaborators from the crucially related policy fields of pain care, population health and substance use in order to develop and initiate appropriate knowledge translation of findings into these key policy and programming fields.