In this technologically disruptive period, government leaders and the contractor community must collaborate in creating shared understandings of the problems we aspire to solve. Case in Point: While the “opioid epidemic” is the current focus of both intensive policy and technical problem solving, we run the risk of producing inadequate solutions based on incomplete understandings. As Marcia Angell, member of the faculty of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a former Editor in Chief of The New England Journal of Medicine, observes in her review of four new books on the epidemic, “[i]t’s startling how little we know.”
“In 2017 the Aspen Institute’s Health Strategy Group, led by two former secretaries of health and human services, Tommy Thompson and Kathleen Sebelius, and consisting of twenty-four members from various health-related fields, met for three days to examine the opioid epidemic. The deliberations were preceded by four presentations by experts in the field. In the final broad and comprehensive report, the group made a strong case for decriminalizing drug addiction and instead regarding it as a public health issue. Among the five major recommendations was a call for more research into nearly all aspects of the epidemic. It’s startling how little we know, given the immensity of the problem and the media attention it receives.”
See the whole review here:
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/12/06/opioid-nation/
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Date: November 20, 2018
