opioid epidemic

[oh-pee--oid ep-i-dem-ik]

noun

1. a public health crisis brought about by a notable increase in the use of opioids.

   legislative efforts to deal with the opioid epidemic.

Word History and Origins

Origin of opioid epidemic¹

First recorded in 2010–15

Example Sentences

Baltimore's state attorney, Ivan Bates, said the incident served as a "powerful reminder" of the city's "ongoing battle against the opioid epidemic".

From BBC

But of course, there are other epidemics that we are living with, particularly the opioid epidemic, which is very much an epidemic that is perpetuated by poverty, that is tied to desperation, that is tied to the ways in which communities have been devastated in a post-industrial context of jobs being gone and so forth, and that that epidemic is something that people are living with, and I would say, is something that various communities, particularly in the Appalachians and Midwest, are still struggling with.

From Salon

In an ongoing opioid epidemic, hospitals drug testing new mothers and their babies has an intuitive logic.

From Slate

Starting in the late 1980s in western Virginia, Kingsolver’s reimagining of “David Copperfield” by Charles Dickens combines a rebuke of the modern foster care system with the devastating effects of the opioid epidemic.

From Los Angeles Times

If we correct for overlap and apply conservative VSL values or QALY-based models without stacking them, most peer-reviewed studies estimate the true economic burden of the opioid epidemic in the range of $500 billion to $800 billion annually, not $2.7 trillion.

From Salon