Lessons from the Response

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic, and the measures implemented to control it, collided with another public health emergency – the opioid crisis – with dire consequences. In October of 2017, the Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency. That declaration has been renewed several times, including during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the latest renewal set to go into effect on July 4, 2022. The overlap of individual, environmental, and social risk factors for substance use disorder (SUD) and COVID-19 present major challenges to those working as part of the response to both pandemics. The severity of the implications of this dual pandemic – an estimated 100,000 people in the United States died from a drug overdose during the first year of the pandemic – make this an area of the pandemic response where lessons learned had to be rapidly implemented to save lives. Identifying ways in which those lessons can be expanded to other populations at risk, including those with other pre-existing mental disorders, will be important to reducing the inequitable impacts of the pandemic on mental health.

Citation

Horney, J.A. (2023), "Lessons from the Response", Horney, J.A. (Ed.) COVID-19, Frontline Responders and Mental Health: A Playbook for Delivering Resilient Public Health Systems Post-Pandemic, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 227-241. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80262-115-020231015