Policy Approaches to the Opioid Crisis, Featuring Remarks from Sir Angus Deaton, Congresswoman Ann McLane Kuster, and Professor Bertha K. Madras

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 will host a conference on how public policy can address the opioid epidemic. The conference will feature 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; Congresswoman 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; and 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 will join a panel of experts in opioid policy to discuss ways to address this national crisis.

Join the conversation on Twitter at #OpioidCrisis

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Event Date: Friday, November 03, 2017
9:30 AM - 11:45 AM Eastern
Location: Falk Auditorium
The Brookings Institution
1775 Mass Ave NW
Washington, DC

Panel

Agenda

Introduction

Paul Ginsburg, Director, USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy

Keynote Remarks

Congresswoman Ann Kuster, Representative, New Hampshire
Sir Angus Deaton, Presidential Professor of Economics, University of Southern California; Senior Scholar and Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of Economics and International Affairs Emeritus, Princeton University
Bertha K. Madras, Professor of Psychobiology - Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, and McLean Hospital

Panelists

Alan Weil, Editor in Chief, Health Affairs
Sir Angus Deaton, Presidential Professor of Economics, University of Southern California; Senior Scholar and Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of Economics and International Affairs Emeritus, Princeton University
Rebecca Haffajee, Assistant Professor of Health Management and Policy, School of Public Health, University of Michigan
Jason Doctor, Norman Topping Chair in Medicine and Public Policy, Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics, Price School of Public Policy, University of Southern California
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, The Brookings Institution