Protecting Workers from Opioid Misuse and Addiction

Abstract

In this chapter we discuss the roots of the opioid crisis and its relationship to work and the workplace. Opioid overdose mortality, in combination with increased deaths from alcohol and suicide, are devastating to American families across the nation. The profound impact on American workplaces includes compromising occupational safety and health, increased workers’ compensation and health insurance costs, rising absenteeism, and lost productivity. The President’s Council of Economic Advisors estimates that over a million workers are out of the workforce due to the opioid crisis. The impact on workers is equally profound including job loss, divorce and family disruption, and potential imprisonment, injury, illness, and death. Contained within this chapter are the review of several studies that document opioid mortality by occupation and industry that conclude that pain from occupational injuries, illnesses, and stress are important pathways to opioid misuse and addiction. A major focus is on the significant opportunity that effective workplace programs offer to prevent and respond to opioid misuse and addiction. Several key policy interventions are recommended including prevention of workplace physical and emotional pain, safe prescribing practices, alternative pain management methods, worker education and training, and moving away from stigmatizing punitive workplace substance abuse programs and replacing them with supportive programs.