Advancing Data to Action: Enhancing Public Health Surveillance and Action Through PDMP Data

Prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) continue to be among the most promising state-level tools to inform public health interventions and clinical decision-making. Nearly 841,000 people died from 1999 through 2019 from a drug overdose. In 2019, 70,630 drug overdose deaths occurred in the United States. Although findings are mixed, some states utilizing their PDMP show smaller increases in indicators of opioid misuse and opioid-related hospital admissions per year. One of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) primary goals pertaining to PDMPs is to maximize their utility as both a public health surveillance and clinical decision support tool. PDMPs can provide health authorities timely information about prescribing trends and patient behaviors that contribute to the overdose epidemic and facilitate a nimble and informed response. Through CDC’s Overdose Data to Action (OD2A) cooperative agreement, CDC has supported recipients with implementing strategies to advance the development and expansion of existing PDMPs and increase their utilization as a public health surveillance tool. Pennsylvania has successfully used their PDMP data for a variety of public health purposes.

In this session, speakers from CDC and Pennsylvania will highlight successful PDMP surveillance strategies that enabled authorized employees of the state, county, and municipal health departments to access identified PDMP data and use it to drive educational programs and public health interventions and conduct analyses on prescribing trends. CDC and Pennsylvania will share lessons learned from OD2A recipients and highlight ongoing efforts on reducing barriers to accessing PDMP data for public health surveillance.