Introduction
'60 million people struggle with the addictive effects of opioids globally and more than 100,000 people die every year of opioid overdose' [1]
The global opioid crisis refers to the widespread misuse of both prescription and non-prescription opioid drugs, used licitly and illicitly, leading to significant social, health, and economic consequences worldwide.
The crisis relates to three types of opioids:
- Natural (eg morphine, codeine)
- Semisynthetic (eg oxycodone, heroin)
- Synthetic (eg fentanyl)
Underlying causes include:
- Aggressive marketing by pharma companies
- Lack of knowledge among healthcare providers
- Mental health and socioeconomic factors
- Illegal drug trade
Possible ways forward include:
- Supply reduction: eg. Prescription monitoring and control systems, Regulation of opioid manufacturing and distribution, etc.;
- Demand Reduction: Better public awareness, Training for healthcare providers, etc;
- Harm reduction: Access to naloxone, Supervised consumption sites, Decriminalization, Integrated mental health and social support
In many countries, there is also a lack of access to prescription opioid drugs, which leads to untreated pain and suffering from diseases such as cancer.
A coordinated, compassionate, and evidence-based approach would save lives and restore communities.
The project
HIFA invites all stakeholders in the global evidence ecosystem - researchers, publishers, library and information professionals, healthcare providers, policymakers, patient representatives, civil society - to explore how to accelerate progress towards a world where every person, every health worker and every policymaker has access to reliable information on the prevention, diagnosis and management of opioid use disorder. Our main focus is on the information and learning needs of health workers (all cadres) and we shall also be looking at the information needs of the general public, patients and policymakers.
In the coming months we shall convene a working group of experts and volunteers to prepare the discussion, which will start officially on 13 April 2026 and will last 4 weeks.
This is the third and final deep-dive discussion in a series on substance use disorders (the first two were on Tobacco and Alcohol).
The discussion will take place on the HIFA forums, a global health community of more than 20,000 professionals representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem, interacting in four languages and working in official relations with WHO.
We are delighted to welcome Dr Eduardo Bianco, Uruguay, as the co-lead for this new HIFA project supported by NextGenU.org
We invite HIFA volunteers to join our dedicated working group to plan and implement the discussion. We shall articulate 4-5 guiding questions for the discussion, perhaps around the following:
- How can we define and measure opioid use disorders?
- Do people understand the health, socio-economic and environmental harms of opioids? What matters to them? How can they be better informed? How to reduce stigma?
- What can be done to raise awareness among the public, and especially young people about the harms of opioids?
- Do health workers have adequate knowledge to prevent and manage opioid use disorders among their patients? What matters to them? How can they be better informed?
- How can professional education be improved to ensure health workers are adequately prepared to diagnose and manage opioid use disorder?
- Do public health professionals and policymakers have adequate knowledge to prevent and treat opioid use disorders in their country? What are current national policies and what more can be done to fully implement those policies?
- How can policymakers be supported to deliver evidence-informed policy and practice to address the opioid crisis?
- What is the role of the pharmaceutical industry? What can be done to address misinformation from the pharmaceutical industry and other sources?
To join the discussion, if you are not already a HIFA member, please join HIFA (free!)
We shall host parallel discussions on HIFA-French, HIFA-Portuguese and HIFA-Spanish, as well as our dedicated global child health forum (CHIFA) in English. Please see our website for details: www.hifa.org
Acknowledgement: HIFA is grateful for sponsorship from the Ulrich and Ruth Frank Foundation for International Health known online as NextGenU.org. NextGenU.org offers free health science certificate courses, and a free/low-cost Master’s degree in Public Health to learners in every country and provides over 800,000 learning sessions each month.