The Pennsylvania State University. Email:
Am J Manag Care. 2019 Jul;25(13 Suppl):S256-S263.
The negative impact of opioids on those who misuse them has been widely documented. Despite significant spillover effects in the form of elevated rates of child maltreatment and child welfare system (CWS) involvement for children affected by parental opioid misuse, the public costs of opioid misuse to the CWS remain largely undocumented. This work seeks to understand the value and limitations of public data in estimating the costs of the opioid epidemic on the CWS. National data from federal sources are combined with best estimates of the association between opioid misuse and child services system utilization. The limitations of this work are explored, and future research priorities are outlined. Ultimately, this work illustrates the need to (1) improve data quality related to parental opioid misuse and CWS linkages; (2) better estimate the number of children and families coming into contact with the CWS as a result of parental opioid misuse; (3) improve predictions of CWS trajectories, including investigation, service provision, and foster care entry among this population; and (4) better estimate the CWS costs associated with patterns of system involvement resulting from parental opioid misuse. This information is crucial to ensuring the production of high-quality system involvement and cost projections related to the opioid crisis.
阿片类药物滥用者的负面影响已被广泛记录。尽管父母阿片类药物滥用对儿童造成了严重的负面影响，包括儿童受虐和儿童福利系统（CWS）介入率的上升，但 CWS 对阿片类药物滥用的公共成本仍在很大程度上未被记录。这项工作旨在了解公共数据在估算阿片类药物流行对 CWS 造成的成本方面的价值和局限性。从联邦来源获得的国家数据与阿片类药物滥用与儿童服务系统利用之间关联的最佳估计相结合。探讨了这项工作的局限性，并概述了未来的研究重点。最终，这项工作说明了需要（1）提高与父母阿片类药物滥用和 CWS 联系相关的数据质量；（2）更好地估计因父母阿片类药物滥用而与 CWS 接触的儿童和家庭的数量；（3）改善对 CWS 轨迹的预测，包括该人群的调查、服务提供和寄养护理进入；以及（4）更好地估计与父母阿片类药物滥用导致的系统参与模式相关的 CWS 成本。这些信息对于确保与阿片类药物危机相关的高质量系统参与和成本预测至关重要。
