Dynamics of combatting market-driven epidemics: Insights from U.S. reduction of cigarette, sugar, and prescription opioid consumption

Misuse and overconsumption of certain consumer products have become major global risk factors for premature deaths, with their total costs in trillions of dollars. Progress in reducing such deaths has been slow and difficult. To address this challenge, this review introduces the definition of market-driven epidemics (MDEs), which arise when companies aggressively market products with proven harms, deny these harms, and resist mitigation efforts. MDEs are a specific within the broader landscape of commercial determinants of health. We selected three illustrative MDE products reflecting different consumer experiences: cigarettes (nicotine delivery product), sugar (food product), and prescription opioids (medical product). Each met the MDE case definition with proven adverse health impacts, well-documented histories, longitudinal product consumption and health impact data, and sustained reduction in product consumption. Based on these epidemics, we describe five MDE phases: market expansio..., , , # Data from: Dynamics of combatting market-driven epidemics: Insights from U.S. reduction of cigarette, sugar, and prescription opioid consumption

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.x3ffbg7tb](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.x3ffbg7tb)

This data shows the amount of opioids that were prescribed in the United States over the three decades that were most affected by the opioid epidemic. 

The data was accessed with permission from Michael Kleinrock, senior research director at the IQVIA Institute.

## Description of the data and file structure

The data is measured in billions of Morphine milligram equivalents (MMEs), which is the standard unit for opioids used by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to measure potency. For example, in 1992, the data cell reads 27.288. This means that 27.288 billion Morphine Milligram Equivalents (MMEs) were dispensed to the US population in 1992.

The data is provided on a yearly basis. No cells are missing data in the time frame (1992-2022).

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