20% of Ontario drug-benefit recipients on prescription opioids

More than 20 per cent of adults on Ontario's publicly-funded drug benefit plan are taking doctor-prescribed opioids, swelling to nearly 30 per cent in someparts of the province, says a new study to be released on Thursday.

The studytracksthe use of such painkillers as oxycodone and fentanylin Ontario

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"The rate of opioid users and related adverse events is high across Ontario, and shows considerable variation by region in the province," says the report,by researchers at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES), St. Michael's Hospital and the Ontario Drug Policy Research Network.

They say the data could help public-health officials target parts of the province at highest risk for opioid abuse, and then measure the impact by comparing future statistics.

The following list showsthe percentage of Ontario Drug benefit recipients, broken down by region, in 2015:

• TimiskamingDistrict: 27.6%
• HaliburtonCounty: 25.9%
• Niagara Regional Municipality: 25.7%
• KawarthaLakes District: 24.6%
• BrantCounty: 24.5%
• Provincial average: 20.5%

The study examined data regarding the 3.2 million people eligible for the Ontario Drug Benefit Plan (ODBP). It found that 20.5 per cent of them more than 669,000 people had been prescribedopioidsfor pain in 2015.

That prescription rate is slightly higher than figures for the whole population, provided separately to CBC Toronto by the Ministry of Health. They show that 1.9 millionOntariansreceivedopioidprescriptions in the 2015-16 fiscal year, about 17 per centof the province's adult population.

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The research shows that the opioid prescription rate varies from region to region, as do the rates of opioid-related hospitalvisits and deaths.

"To me, the significance of this work is its ability to demonstrate that this is not auniformissue across Ontario," said researcherTara Gomes, an epidemiologist at StMichael's Hospital in Toronto.

"There are certainly specific regions where there is clustering," Gomes said in an interview with CBC Toronto. "This gives us better information to tailor our response to the opioid epidemic."

The researchers found the highest death rates from opioids in the province in 2013 were reported in Timiskaming District, followed by Thunder Bay in both cases a rate more than four times the provincial average. Those figures include overdose deaths from street drugs such as heroin, not just prescription opioids.

The researchers also broke down the rates of emergency department visits, hospital admissions and deaths related toopioids, for each of the province's health regions, known as Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs).

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"This wasthe first time that we were really able to pull together all this information, put it in the same place, and try to have it as up to date as possible," said Gomes.

The figures revealedopioidusers in the North EastLHINare using emergency rooms and getting admitted to hospital at rates higher than anywhere else in Ontario, about double the provincial average. They also show high rates in theErie St.ClairandHamilton-Niagara-Haldimand-Brantregions.

The study also finds that Thunder Bay has highest rate of people onopioidmaintenance therapy, roughly four timesthe provincial average. The rate is also significantly elevated in Greater Sudbury.