Jennifer Waljee
Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis, IN·Public Health & Epidemiology
Surgical care in the United States produces at least 15.4 million opioid prescriptions each year. Many are larger than needed or written in risky ways, which raises the chance of overdose, addiction, diversion (pills passed to others) and long-term opioid use.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
opioid prescribing
perioperative opioids
postoperative pain
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Apr 2027
What they work on
- Measure how state opioid prescribing limits affect opioid prescribing and adverse events after surgery, and how effects vary by policy feature, patient, procedure and prescriber, using commercial, Medicare and Medicaid claims with quasi-experimental methods.
- Evaluate the effects of state mandates requiring clinicians to check prescription drug monitoring program databases on perioperative opioid prescribing, high-risk prescribing and opioid-related harms, using the same claims databases.
- Determine how a major Michigan insurer's opioid limit and Michigan's PDMP mandate affected prescribing and patient-reported outcomes after surgery, by linking a statewide surgical registry with the state PDMP database.
More about the research
To reduce these harms, most states have passed policies that limit opioid prescriptions for acute pain. Many also require clinicians to check a prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) database, a record of a patient's past controlled-substance prescriptions, before prescribing. Few studies have carefully tested whether these policies work for surgical patients or have unintended effects, such as worse pain control.
Why it matters
Excessive opioid prescribing after surgery can lead to overdose, addiction and long-term opioid use. This work will show whether state prescribing limits and PDMP-check requirements actually reduce these risks without leaving surgical patients in pain. Its findings could guide policymakers and insurers in expanding policies that work or in designing better alternatives.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Hefei Wen
Emory University, GA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Estimate effects of the first year of Medicare Part D opioid safety edits, before the 2020 public health emergency, on non-elderly beneficiaries prescribed long-term, high-dose opioid therapy, using 2017-22 Medicare claims and quasi-experimental designs.
Barbara Andraka-Christou
University of Central Florida, FL·Public Health & Epidemiology
Build a public, year-by-year database of state statutes, regulations and executive orders (2014–2024) meant to promote medications for opioid use disorder after ED overdose visits, using expert-guided searches of NexisUni legal software.
Aaron Schwartz
University of Pennsylvania, PA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Measure how many Medicare Advantage patients faced prior authorization (insurer pre-approval) for heart-related services from 2016–2024, and which clinical, demographic and geographic groups were most affected, using UnitedHealth policy and claims data.
The school
Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis: 25 labs on PI Pages, $89M a year on research, 120 research doctorates a year.
More about Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis
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