Today, our nation faces a different kind of epidemic — a rising toll of hospitalizations and deaths from opioid abuse. The Department of Defense (DoD) and Veterans Health Administration (VA) have been aware of problems with excessive use of opioids in patient management for more than a decade. This recognition, in part, was driven by the last 17 years of armed conflict and the health care challenges this has wrought on injured Service Members and their families.
Read more here: http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2017/08/04/stopping-epidemics-at-the-source-applying-lessons-from-cholera-to-the-opioid-crisis/