Citation

Walley AY. Prev. Med. 2015; 80: 37-40.

Affiliation

Department of Medicine, Section of General Internal Medicine, Clinical Addiction Research and Education Unit, Boston University School of Medicine/Boston Medical Center, 801 MA Avenue, Boston, USA. Electronic address: awalley@bu.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ypmed.2015.04.004

PMID

25895840

Abstract

Since the 1990s, effective HIV prevention and treatment strategies have been coordinated and implemented in the United States, resulting in substantial reductions in HIV-related death and HIV transmission among people who use injection drugs. During the same period, despite substantial long-term funding of War on Drugs policies, opioid addiction, driven by increased prescription opioid use and heroin accessibility, have made overdose the leading cause of accidental injury death in the United States. This commentary describes how the prevention and treatment successes among people who use drugs in the HIV/AIDS epidemic can be applied to address the opioid overdose crisis.

Language: en