The Center for Opioid Epidemiology and Policy at NYU Langone launched in 2018 to serve as a central source of research on the United States' rapidly shifting opioid overdose epidemic. Led by Magdalena Cerdá, DrPH, MPH, associate professor in the Department of Population Health, the center seeks to inform evidence-based policies to prevent opioid misuse, disorder, and overdose in populations nationally and globally.
Opioid overdoses now claim more lives per year than HIV/AIDS did at the height of that epidemic; 1 in 65 deaths in the United States were opioid related in 2016. It's not just about fatal overdose. An unknown but large number of people suffer from chronic opioid abuse and nonfatal overdose, which has devastating individual and societal consequences.