Release Date
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Language of Resource
Full Text Available
Open Access / OK to Reproduce
Peer Reviewed
Objective
The National Overdose Response Service (NORS) is a Canada-wide telephone-based harm reduction service. Service users can call the phone number and connect to a peer who can virtually monitor the substance use session and dispatch appropriate interventions in the case of overdose. We aim to assess the cost-benefit of NORS by comparing the estimated cost-savings from prevented overdose mortality to the operating costs of the program, alongside healthcare costs associated with its operation.
Findings/Key points
Over the total funded lifespan of the program, and using a Monte Carlo estimate, the benefit-to-cost ratio of the NORS program was 8.59 (1.53–15.28) per dollar spent, depending on estimated mortality rates following unwitnessed overdose and program operation costs. Further, we conservatively estimate that early community-based naloxone intervention results in healthcare system savings of $4470.82 per overdose response.
Design/methods
Data around systems costs and operational costs were gathered for our calculations. Our primary outcome was cost-benefit ratios, derived from estimates and models of mortality rates in current literature and value of life lost. We presented our main results across a range of values for costs and the probability of death following an unwitnessed overdose. These values were utilized to calculate cost-benefit ratios and value per dollar spent on service provision by NORS over the length of the program’s operation (December 2020–2022).
