All of those who study and deliver health care and set the policy and standards of care that inform treatment for opioid abuse are challenged to achieve the right balance. How can we reduce human suffering while minimizing the equally painful impact of opioid dependence? There are no easy answers to this question, but the available data could inform the way forward for practitioners, researchers, educators, and policy makers, ultimately for the betterment of the patient’s health.

Our focus at IQVIA is to help optimize health by bringing data and fact-based insights forward to better inform decision makers in this critical area, with the utmost respect of privacy and data security. This report provides a timely view of trends in opioid prescriptions dispensed in community pharmacies (excluding hospitals) in Canada comparing the year 2019, the year before the coronavirus pandemic, with pandemic years 2020 and 2021, segmented by demographics and provinces/regions to illustrate progress and remaining concerns. See page 13 for limitations to using IQVIA data.

The statistics and analysis featured in this report were sourced from the IQVIA Health Insights Dashboard, part of a collaboration with the IQVIA Advisory Boards for Advancement in Health. Composed of stakeholders of influence in healthcare and data management from Quebec and Ontario, the Boards serve to promote responsible access and use of health data to help shed light on some of the most challenging health issues facing Canadians.

The Boards’ driving belief is the concept of a connected health system—one that leverages effective, efficient, and ethical data sharing from all available sources—to help stakeholders make fully informed decision. One of the Boards’ main goals is to make the Health Insights Dashboard accessible to key stakeholders (governments, politicians, professional orders, physicians, organizations) to demonstrate the added value of using health data to inform and draw attention to certain trends.

This report was produced independently by IQVIA Canada as a public service, without industry or government funding. IQVIA complies with all legislation relating to the protection of personal health information. IQVIA does not collect any data on prescription drugs that can identify a patient or that can be used for this purpose.