AI and optimization model leads to equitable treatment resource distribution

The opioid epidemic is a crisis that has plagued the United States for decades. One central issue of the epidemic is inequitable access to treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD), which puts certain populations at a higher risk of opioid overdose.

New research in Manufacturing & Service Operations Management provides socioeconomically equitable solutions by utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) and optimization. It’s the first research of its kind to target the opioid crisis and identify solutions at a state-by-state level.

“Our proposed solution focuses on equitability and access to treatment facilities based on state data. We found that applying the recommendations from our integrated AI and optimization approach, on average, could decrease the number of people with opioid use disorder (OUD), increase the number of people getting treatment and decrease the number of opioid-related deaths within two years,” says Joyce Luo of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The study, “Frontiers in Operations: Equitable Data-Driven Facility Location and Resource Allocation to Fight the Opioid Epidemic,” was conducted by Luo alongside Bartolomeo Stellato of Princeton University.

“Our recommendations consider how socially vulnerable each county is within a state, which is important to ensure greater socioeconomic equitability for the allocation of facilities across that state,” says Stellato.

The researchers say that this approach, guided by epidemiological and socioeconomic factors, could help inform strategic decision-making. Compared to alternative approaches based solely on population and social vulnerability, this approach leads to a greater reduction in overdose deaths and the number of people with OUD.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), around 500,000 people have died from overdoses involving both illicit and prescription opioids from 1999 to 2019. Currently, the main treatment for OUD is medication-assisted treatment (MAT), which has been proven to sustain patient recovery and prevent future overdoses.

Although access to these treatment medications has expanded in the last decade, there are still major gaps in access across the United States, especially in rural areas with underdeveloped health infrastructures.

“The epidemic evolves differently in different states, and policies related to opioid treatment should be reflective of the needs of each state. It is critical to have tailored policies; this is not a one-size-fits-all issue. By optimizing treatment facility locations and budget allocations at the state level, there is potential to significantly improve health outcomes,” concludes Luo.