Fighting Abuse with Prescription Tracking: Mandatory Drug Monitoring and Intimate Partner Violence

The opioid crisis generates broader societal harms beyond direct health and economic effects, impacting non-users through adverse spillovers on children, families, and communities. We study the spillover effects of a supply-side policy aimed at reducing the over-prescribing of opioids on women’s wellbeing by examining its effects on intimate partner violence (IPV). Using administrative data on incidents reported to law enforcement, in conjunction with quasi-experimental variation in the adoption of stringent mandatory access prescription drug monitoring programs, we find that these policies have generated a downstream benefit for women by significantly reducing their overall exposure to IPV and IPV-involved injuries by 9 to 10 percent. Strongest effects are experienced by groups with higher rates of opioid consumption at baseline, including non-Hispanic Whites. However, we also find a significant uptick in heroin-involved IPV incidents, suggesting substitution into illicit drug consumption. Our results highlight the need to identify high-risk groups prone to switching to illicit opioids and to address this risk through evidence-based policies. Accounting for effects on IPV adds to the estimated societal burden of the opioid epidemic.