Pittsburgh project takes novel approach in fighting opioid epidemic.

Abstract

Knowing that a certain opioid is responsible for deaths in a community can be useful in preventing more such fatalities, according to a pharmacy faculty member whose project aims to do that and more. Associate professor Janice L. Pringle directs the Program Evaluation and Research Unit at the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy. She and the unit led the creation of OverdoseFreePA.org, an online resource for Pennsylvania communities to increase their efforts in treating and preventing substance use disorders. A major project at OverdoseFreePA.org is to clean the data that county coroners and medical examiners provide on drug-related overdose deaths. The cleanup is based in part on heroin metabolism: the human body converts heroin to morphine or 6-monoacetylmorphine and converts morphine to codeine. At autopsy of persons exposed to heroin, according to OverdoseFreePA.org, that drug oftentimes is not detectable in a toxicology screen, but a metabolite (morphine) is detectable; thus, their death certificates almost exclusively list morphine and perhaps antidepressants and marijuana, Pringle said.