Expanding access to naloxone is a key component of the national strategy to end the opioid crisis in America, and community pharmacies play a central role in distributing this overdose-reversing medication. Prior to naloxone receiving federal approval for over-the-counter availability as Narcan nasal spray in 2023, almost all US states allowed individuals to obtain the life-saving drug at community pharmacies without a prescription through a state authorization known as a standing order. But there remains a limited understanding of whether pharmacy naloxone distribution has had any effect on reducing opioid overdose deaths in communities.
A new study led by a Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) researcher has examined Massachusetts's standing order for pharmacy naloxone distribution and found that communities with pharmacies dispensing standing order naloxone to community residents showed a significant decrease in opioid fatality rates, compared to communities that did not implement standing order naloxone programs. For the study, published in JAMA Network Open , researchers from BUSPH, Boston Medical Center, Brandeis University, and West Virginia University conducted a retrospective multi-site interrupted time series analysis and found that despite an increase in opioid fatality rates overall in Massachusetts during the study period from 2013 to 2018, individual communities where standing order naloxone was dispensed at pharmacies observed a decrease in opioid .