Planning State Opioid Settlements

The UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School’s Center for the Business of Health (CBOH) and Acadia Healthcare have announced a partnership to fund a two-year project to create an adaptable opioid settlement playbook for state, municipal and local governments to effectively address America’s opioid epidemic.

The project’s goal is to review the opioid epidemic’s deep impact, address untested or under-researched treatment and prevention approaches, and develop best practice recommendations tailored to individual communities.

The partnership with Acadia Healthcare comes as thousands of communities across the U.S. are receiving money to support opioid recovery efforts, the result of legal settlements with opioid manufacturers and pharmacy chains. North Carolina has already received about $30 million in settlement funds of the nearly $758 million coming to North Carolina communities through 2038.

“States and municipalities are receiving these funds without any guidance on how best to deploy them,” said Professor Brad Staats, CBOH faculty director and senior associate dean for strategy and academics at UNC Kenan-Flagler. “As settlement funds flow into communities across the country and North Carolina, we hope a playbook will help guide policy and other decision makers as they allocate resources.”

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