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Past Event

Policy approaches to the opioid crisis, featuring remarks from Sir Angus Deaton, Rep. Ann McLane Kuster, and Professor Bertha K. Madras

An event from the USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy

Past Event

Introduction and keynote

According to the CDC, 91 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose, and more than 1,000 Americans are treated in emergency departments for improper use of prescription opioids daily. The opioid crisis has grown substantially over the last 15 years and its effects can be felt in communities across the country. Since 1999, the number of overdose deaths involving opioids has quadrupled and preliminary data indicates that this upward trend will only continue. Drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death among Americans under the age of 50.

On Friday, November 3, the USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy hosted a conference on how public policy can address the opioid epidemic. The conference featured keynote remarks from:

  • Sir Angus Deaton, a Nobel Prize winning economist whose work has documented the shocking rise of “deaths of despair” among white Americans without a four-year college degree
  • Rep. Ann McLane Kuster from New Hampshire, ranking member of the House Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and co-chair of the Bipartisan Heroin Task Force
  • Bertha Madras, a psychobiology professor at Harvard Medical School and member of the President’s Commission on Combatting Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, who will discuss the recommendations from the commission report set to be released earlier that week, along with her own work

Following their remarks, Deaton and Madras joined a panel of experts in opioid policy to discuss ways to address this national crisis.

Agenda

Introduction

Keynote Remarks

Sir Angus Deaton

Senior Scholar and Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of Economics and International Affairs, Emeritus - Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University

Bertha K. Madras

Professor of Psychobiology - Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, and McLean Hospital

Panel: Addressing the Opioid Crisis through Public Policy

Moderator

Alan Weil

Editor-in-Chief - Health Affairs

Rebecca Haffajee

Assistant Professor of Health Management and Policy - University of Michigan School of Public Health

Jason Doctor

Director of Health Informatics - USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics

Norman Topping Chair in Medicine and Public Policy - Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics, Price School of Public Policy, University of Southern California

Chair, Department of Health Policy and Management - USC Price School of Public Policy

Associate Professor - USC Price School of Public Policy

Sir Angus Deaton

Senior Scholar and Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of Economics and International Affairs, Emeritus - Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University

Bertha K. Madras

Professor of Psychobiology - Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, and McLean Hospital

Closing Remarks

Leonard D. Schaeffer

Judge Robert Maclay Widney Chair and Professor - USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics and USC Price School of Public Policy

Trustee - University of Southern California

Trustee - Brookings Institution

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