Milbank Quarterly Webinar: Opioid Settlement Funds — Policy Recommendations and Implementation Insights 

State and local governments have received more than $50 billion in opioid settlement funds over 18 years to address harms from the opioid crisis. A recent Milbank Quarterly webinar drew from articles on developing and implementing opioid settlement fund policies from our special issue, Mental Health and Substance Use Challenges Facing the United States: What Can State Policymakers Do? Panelists discussed: 

• developing policy recommendations to ensure state opioid settlement funds are used to maximize health benefit,
• leveraging data science and artificial intelligence to inform state and local resource allocation for overdose prevention, and
• applying lessons learned from New York State’s multi-agency implementation of programs to provide medication for opioid use disorder in carceral facilities using the settlement funds.  

The panel included: 

• Chinazo Cunningham, Commissioner, New York State Office of Addiction Services and Supports, co-author of The Largest Program for Opioid Use Disorder in a Statewide Carceral System: A Collaborative Multi-Agency Initiative
• Katherine Keyes, Professor, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, co-author of Stemming the Tide of the US Overdose Crisis: How Can We Leverage the Power of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence?  
• Brandon Marshall, Professor, Brown University School of Public Health, co-author of Maximizing the Public Health Benefits of Opioid Settlements: Policy Recommendations for Equity, Sustainability, and Impact