The COVID-19 pandemic has dominated much of the attention our nation has paid to public health in the past few years, yet the opioid epidemic has continued to rage on in the U.S. and Canada. Some of the conditions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic—including isolation and overburdened health systems—likely contributed to the rise in opioid overdoses, and both the COVID-19 and opioid crises put pressure on the same public health, social service, and education systems. In this volume, we aim to improve our understanding of the consequences of the opioid epidemic in a variety of societal and community domains, including child well-being, education, housing security, food security, labor productivity, and public budgets.
