2018 Case: The Opioid Epidemic 

Background: 
In 2017, the US Department for Health and Human Services (HHS) declared a 
public health emergency due to the opioid crisis. This crisis has been centered around 
the misuse of opiate drugs that are typically prescribed to patients to help deal with 
severe pain. Although opiates can be controlled and used with good intentions, they are 
highly addictive. However, prescriptions by doctors for these medications increased 
immensely before the addiction problem became apparent. 
Although this epidemic has gained attention from doctors, public health/policy 
experts, and media over recent years, significant progress has yet to be made. In 2016, 
opioid overdoses accounted for over 42,000 deaths, which was a record high in a given 
year. A​ ​forecast by STAT​ found that as many as 650,000 people will die over the next 10 
years from opioid overdoses, and recent data from the CDC shows that there were more 
opioid deaths than ​guns, car crashes, and HIV/AIDs deaths​, as well as all US military 
casualties in the ​Vietnam and Iraq wars combined​.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
In efforts to address this crisis, HHS has identified five key priorities: 
1. Improving access to treatment and recovery services 
2. Promoting use of overdose-reversing drugs 
3. Strengthening our understanding of the epidemic through better public health 
surveillance 
4. Providing support for cutting-edge research on pain and addiction 

5. Advancing better practices for pain management 

In addition to these priorities, increased funding and energy has been spent on 
addressing this problem through data to detect behaviors and come up with actionable 
insights. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has established an initiative to 
award funds to states who are specifically using data-driven insights to combat this 
epidemic.  

More information on the Opioid Epidemic can be found here: 

bit.ly/JAMAOpioids 

bit.ly/CDCDrugOverdose 

bit.ly/NIDAOverdoseCrisis 

The Research Problem: 

For this datathon, we invite you to explore the data sources we have provided to 
understand the underlying predictors of this crisis​. At the core, your final deliverable 
should be centered around what key factors influence drug-related deaths. Your analysis 
should include a thorough examination of the sources provided and use a sound 
statistical approach to this problem that accounts for various external factors. This can 
involve predictive models (ie. machine learning, regression-based techniques) to predict 
drug deaths based on a defined feature set, or a descriptive modeling to quantify 
relationships you may find in the data. 
Beyond this core question, further research questions that build off of your preliminary 
insights are open to the creativity of your team. Two examples of such driving questions 
are given below: 

1. Within a specific timeline, can you find and predict spikes in overdose death in 
counties across the US?  
2. Can you identify the impact of state-wide policies on drug overdose deaths 
between 2010 and 2017? Which were most effective/least effective, and what 
kinds of policies would be most effective for the future? 
 
Answering the core question is the primary focus of the Blueprint Datathon. However, 
including supplementary analysis or proposing actionable policies based on your findings 
will enhance your team’s submission. This part should show an understanding of your 
analytical methods and how you used them to generate your suggestions. 
 
Deliverables: 
The competition will be judged in two parts. First, each team will be required to 
submit a ​2-page​ write-up and a ​link to a GitHub repository c​ ontaining all relevant code 
by ​10 AM Sunday, 3/11​. This write-up should summarize your analysis methods and final 
conclusions. Judges will choose the top 5 teams based on these submissions. These 
teams will be invited to give a 5 minute presentation during our closing ceremony, 
followed by 5 minutes of questions from the judges. The presentation should expand on 
the 2-page write-up. 
 
For both deliverables, teams should: 
● Describe the methods used 
● Interpret results, concentrating on what you learned through the Datathon 
● Emphasize challenges in carrying out the analysis 
● Illustrate the originality and novelty of your approach 
● Reference any external sources you used to help you complete the task 

 
The Data: 
Data has been obtained from 2 main sources. Your primary data source will be the 
County Health Rankings dataset. This dataset is a compilation of several other public 
datasets from 2010-2017 grouped at the county level, and contains granular information 
for many relevant features. Before starting, we highly recommend going through the 
dataset and identifying interesting categories and gaps in the data. 
The second dataset provided is from census.gov. Similar to the first dataset, it 
contains data organized by county, but spans a different set of years and contains more 
features that can include housing, income and poverty, social programs, and employment 
statistics.  
County Health Rankings: 
bit.ly/CountyHealthRanking  
Census.gov: 
bit.ly/CensusGovData 
 
Additionally, although not a required part of your analysis, using policy datasets can 
strengthen your team’s submission. We have included two of these sources below. 
 
Policy Datasets 
2015 - 2018: 
bit.ly/Policy2015-2018  
2009 - 2014: 
bit.ly/Policy2009-2014   

Judging: 
Judging will broadly be based upon the following: 
● Soundness of the approach taken (including, but not limited to, statistical 
significance, auROC) 
● Potential scientific, societal, and policy impacts of the results 
● Originality and novelty of the approach 
● Quality of the description of the data and tools used, especially reproducibility 
● Quality of the 2-page write-up and execution of presentation