COLUMBUS, Ohio — Efforts are underway across Ohio, and the country, to reduce the number of overdose deaths involving prescription drugs, but a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found an effective treatment option is not widely used.

In 2022, more than 4,000 Ohioans died from an opioid overdose, according to the Ohio Department of Health. Nationwide, more than 81,000 Americans lost their lives to opioid overdoses that same year, according to the CDC.

“Lots of Americans dying and lots that we can do to try to stop it,” said Dr. Debbie Dowell.

Dowell said she’s witnessed first hand a shift in opioids’ increasing impact throughout her career, from her days treating patients in New York City to now nearing her tenth year serving as the chief medical officer for the CDC’s division of overdose prevention.

“This is a medical illness,” she said. “And for many people, it’s a chronic medical disease. And it’s really not at all easy for people to just stop without help.”

Dowell and a team of CDC researchers analyzed 2022 data collected by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. In a year that set a record for the number of opioid-involved overdose deaths, she said the team wanted to learn how many people needed treatment for opioid use disorder, how many received treatment and if they received effective treatment.

“Treatment of opioid use disorder hasn’t been thought of as a primary care or a chronic problem that everybody treats,” she said. “We need to think of it that way.”

The FDA approved three medications to treat opioid use disorder in adults: buprenorphine, methadone, and extended-release naltrexone. But the CDC’s report shows only one in four people who need treatment for opioid use disorder receive the medication.

“But we know these drugs are effective and they get people back to work,” Dowell said. “They prevent death. And it’s a medical treatment for a medical problem.”

Of those who received the medication, Dowell said the results were life-changing.

“More than half of them were so effectively treated that they no longer had symptoms that would qualify them by the DSM criteria for opioid use disorder,” she said.

The CDC hopes to raise awareness about the availability of these treatment options to help encourage more widespread acceptance and use.

Dowell said the data backing the effectiveness of the medications can give new hope that recovery is possible. And there’s help available when they’re ready for it.

“We have so many people struggling, and we need to make this something that just like if somebody came to your office with signs of diabetes, you would treat them with the appropriate medications,” she said. “You would use these, these medications to help people and to save lives.“