Smarter use of data (and AI) could bring down opioid deaths

How the next wave of technology is upending the global economy and its power structures

Jun 26, 2024 View in browser   By Ruth Reader An arrangement of pills of the opioid oxycodone-acetaminophen. | Patrick Sison/AP There may be no phrase in the English language that makes the eyes glaze over faster than “public health data infrastructure.” But any big effort to tackle urgent health problems requires data, and lots of it. A recent multi-year study from the National Institutes of Health tried to find out if county health departments could make progress against America’s horrifying opioid epidemic if they had much more robust data — the kind of information that would help them see the factors contributing to their local addiction problem. The bad news: Overall, the $350 million federal effort, called HEALing (Help End Addiction Longterm) Communities — which aimed to drive down opioid deaths by 40 percent — failed to significantly reduce fatal drug overdoses. An analysis of the study found that it was fighting significant headwinds because of the pandemic and a rise in illicit fentanyl use. But there were signs of hope in some counties, like Ohio’s Toledo-Lucas County. (Read the full story of what happened, and what officials want to do next, in The Fifty.)  In Lucas County, federal funds paid for iPads to help collect and share data and offer videos to train people to use the opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone. It bought a mobile van for educational outreach and naloxone distribution. And it came with access to a staff who coordinated and analyzed data, designed interventions and helped with marketing. The data provided a clearer view of Lucas County’s drug problem, showing which ZIP codes and demographics were seeing the most overdose deaths. And it allowed a coalition of local public health officials, treatment providers, law enforcement, and others to bring deaths down 20 percent between 2020 and 2022. The study also illuminated some real challenges in using data effectively to improve public health nationwide. The U.S. is uniquely bad at collecting health data, in part because our health system is so fractured. Hospitals own their data and can be resistant to sharing it. But the ability to tackle epidemics of all kinds—from covid to drug addiction—requires being able to see who is affected and where they are located. When county departments do get data, even on basic metrics like opioid deaths, it can be years behind. There’s also a glaring lack of specialists to work with the data they do gather. The study provided each county with its own data analyst for the duration of the study. But after the study ended, many counties found themselves with reams of data and unable to pay a data analyst to work with it. While they are still using the data to send out naloxone and educational materials, they could be using the data to better understand smaller trends among certain ethnicities or other groups. For example, during the study, researchers collected all of the meeting minutes from the coalition meetings. Those meeting minutes are a rich source of qualitative data, where members of the community discuss the problems they’re running into and experiences treating substance use disorder. In theory it could reveal important new patterns or help communities to come up with plans to fill holes in their understanding of the issue. “We didn't have time to analyze the minutes,” said Nabila El-Bassel, professor of social work at Columbia University who led the HEALing Communities study in New York. This is where AI could come in. While El-Bassel says it’s very important there’s a human to review takeaways delivered by AI, technology could do a lot of data crunching. For instance, ChatGPT could analyze those minutes quickly, and help coalition members create action items. “You know how many seconds it takes to download a focus group of two hours? It takes one minute, two seconds,” she said. The 67 counties that participated in the study now have a basic infrastructure for pulling in data quickly. And it can be built on to track other health trends within people suffering from substance abuse, like the prevalence of infectious disease. She says with more and better data, AI can help unearth microtrends, like what percentage of people suffering from opiate addiction are unhoused and where they may be congregating or moving to. “If we collect data about different populations, we can really address the underserved populations fast,” she said.   THE GOLD STANDARD OF DEFENSE POLICY REPORTING & INTELLIGENCE: POLITICO has more than 500 journalists delivering unrivaled reporting and illuminating the policy and regulatory landscape for those who need to know what’s next. Throughout the election and the legislative and regulatory pushes that will follow, POLITICO Pro is indispensable to those who need to make informed decisions fast. The Pro platform dives deeper into critical and quickly evolving sectors and industries, like defense, equipping policymakers and those who shape legislation and regulation with essential news and intelligence from the world’s best politics and policy journalists. Our newsroom is deeper, more experienced, and better sourced than any other. Our defense reporting team—including Lara Seligman, Joe Gould, Paul McCleary, Connor O’Brien and Lee Hudson—is embedded with the market-moving legislative committees and agencies in Washington and across states, delivering unparalleled coverage of defense policy and the defense industry. We bring subscribers inside the conversations that determine policy outcomes and the future of industries, providing insight that cannot be found anywhere else. Get the premier news and policy intelligence service, SUBSCRIBE TO POLITICO PRO TODAY.     murthy's law Tourists visit the Supreme Court on June 25, 2024, in Washington. | Jacquelyn Martin/AP The Supreme Court ruled that the Biden administration can’t be sued over its interactions with social media platforms, an opinion that could have major ramifications for the future of online moderation. In a 6-3 ruling today in Murthy v. Missouri, the court said two Republican-controlled state governments and five social media users lacked standing to sue the White House over communications it had with social media platforms encouraging them to remove false information about the Covid-19 pandemic, election fraud and other contested subjects. Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas dissented. As POLITICO’s Rebecca Kern and Josh Gerstein reported today, the court's majority worried that intervening would be a case of severe judicial overreach: “The plaintiffs, without any concrete link between their injuries and the defendants’ conduct, ask us to conduct a review of the years-long communications between dozens of federal officials, across different agencies, with different social-media platforms, about different topics,” wrote Justice Amy Coney Barrett in the majority opinion. “This Court’s standing doctrine prevents us from ‘exercis[ing such] general legal oversight’ of the other branches of Government.” money for scientists Science funding got a big boost from Washington this morning, with the House Committee for Appropriations approving $9.2 billion in funding for the National Science Foundation in fiscal year 2025, a 2 percent increase over current funding levels. POLITICO’s Jennifer Scholtes reported on the funding package for Pro subscribers, which included a total of $78.3 billion for the NSF, Commerce Department and Justice Department. (Commerce and Justice saw budget cuts compared to the previous fiscal year.) The NSF is the agency that was authorized for the most funds under 2022’s CHIPS and Science Act, for developing the American semiconductor labor force and applying advanced chip design in the manufacturing industry. The package also assigned $5.5 million to the Office of Science and Technology Policy, $1.8 million for the National Space Council and $25.1 billion for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Tweet of the Day The Future in 5 links Those terms of service you definitely read might have changed to accommodate AI. AI work assistants aren’t quite as plug-and-play as employers hoped. The AI-powered translation in Meta’s Ray-Bans struggled on the streets of Quebec. A study found one in five of America’s EV chargers don’t work. Good news! There’s a smiling robot face made of living skin. Stay in touch with the whole team: Derek Robertson (drobertson@politico.com); Mohar Chatterjee (mchatterjee@politico.com); Steve Heuser (sheuser@politico.com); Nate Robson (nrobson@politico.com); Daniella Cheslow (dcheslow@politico.com); and Christine Mui (cmui@politico.com). If you’ve had this newsletter forwarded to you, you can sign up and read our mission statement at the links provided.   SUBSCRIBE TO GLOBAL PLAYBOOK: Don’t miss out on POLITICO’s Global Playbook, our newsletter taking you inside pivotal discussions at the most influential gatherings in the world. Suzanne Lynch delivers the world's elite and influential moments directly to you. Stay in the global loop. SUBSCRIBE NOW.       Follow us on Twitter Ben Schreckinger @SchreckReports Derek Robertson @afternoondelete Steve Heuser @sfheuser   Follow us

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