Notre Dame creates opioid database
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The University of Notre Dame has created a public database aimed at helping researchers, policymakers and health professionals better combat the opioid crisis.
The Automation of Reports and Consolidated Orders System, or ARCOS, stores more than 550 million opioid transactions submitted to the Drug Enforcement Administration by drug manufacturers and distributors from 2006 to 2019, the university said.
The website enables customizable queries to trace individual prescription opioid purchases, from the state and county of manufacture to the community where the drugs were dispensed.
“Understanding the root of the drug crisis is crucial for medical professionals, researchers and policymakers to mitigate its impact effectively,” William Evans, an economic professor and co-founder of the university’s Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities, said in a news release. “This is critical as this crisis has been particularly devastating for certain groups such as those who have been left behind in the economy. With this data, we now have unbelievable detail about the origins of this crisis, and we hope that this information can be part of developing solutions.”
The data became available amid national litigation over prescription opioids.
Paul Farrell Jr., a 1994 Notre Dame alumnus and co-lead attorney in the case, and his team had made the data publicly available on their firm’s website, but the data set was difficult to work with given its size, the news release said. So Farrell and the case’s expert witness met with researchers from Notre Dame to make the information more accessible.
“The data itself is not going to save a life, but the results from our collective research using the data can provide impactful data innovations that promote the prosperity of humanity,” said Nitesh Chawla, founding director of the university’s Lucy Family Institute for Data and Society.
The website is at ARCOS.nd.edu.