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CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report on Opioid Prescribing Rates

The CDC recently published the article, Opioid Prescribing Rates in Nonmetropolitan and Metropolitan Counties Among Primary Care Providers Using an Electronic Health Record System — United States, 2014–2017, in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.  The authors looked at differences in prescribing rates among six urban-rural county classifications across the US before and after the March 2016 release of CDC’s Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain.

They found that the percentage of patients prescribed an opioid was higher in rural than in urban areas, however significant decreases in opioid prescribing occurred across all urban-rural categories after the release of the Guideline.