# Assessing the Impact of Opioid Prescription Duration Limits

> **NIH NIH R21** · WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $221,692

## Abstract

PROJECT ABSTRACT
 To date, 33 states have implemented prescription duration limits to combat the national
opioid epidemic. The intention of these policies is to minimize patient exposure to opioids, thereby
reducing dependence rates, overdoses, and costly health care utilization. However, limiting
prescription supply may have unintended adverse consequences, including increased health care
use or suicide due to uncontrolled pain, and use of illicit non-prescription substances (e.g., heroin,
illegally manufactured fentanyl) as a substitute for legally-prescribed opioids. Despite these
competing potential impacts, no study has assessed the impact of a prescription duration limit
policy. The proposed study will be the first to measure the impact of these policies on prescription
patterns (Aim 1), health care use (Aim 2), and health outcomes (Aim 3). Crucially, we will assess
both intended and unintended – yet potentially dire – impacts of these policies. We will address
this important knowledge gap by using an innovative “dose response” event-study methodology.
In particular, we will compare outcomes in areas (counties) more “exposed” to the policies to
those in less exposed areas. We define relative exposure as the rate of opioid prescriptions that
exceeded the policies’ limit on days’ supply, prior to policy implementation. This approach has an
important advantage over other methods: we are able to distinguish between metrics that will be
disproportionately targeted by duration limits (which is based specifically on days’ supply) versus
other opioid-specific metrics (e.g., number of prescriptions), which are likely to be influenced by
other opioid reduction policies. This allows us to isolate the impact of duration limits alone, unlike
other methodological approaches, which may be biased due to the many other opioid-related
policies that have been implemented. Data for the study come from West Virginia (WV) and
Kentucky (KY) Medicaid claims. Because WV and KY have different duration limits, we will be
able to directly compare the impact of stricter versus more lenient policies. Results from this study
will provide urgently-needed evidence that will inform public health policy and clinical practice
across the US. This study is firmly aligned with NIDA’s research emphasis on provider and health
systems-based approaches to drug abuse prevention.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10057591
- **Project number:** 1R21DA050047-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Lindsay Allen
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $221,692
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-07-01 → 2021-07-01

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10057591

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10057591, Assessing the Impact of Opioid Prescription Duration Limits (1R21DA050047-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10057591. Licensed CC0.

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