Opioids are substances such as Vicodin, OxyContin, and Percocet that are commonly prescribed by doctors to treat patients for moderate-to-severe pain relief, but research shows that about a third of patients misuse them, and a staggering three million Americans abuse them – often to the point of addiction or overdose.

And while opioid abuse has been getting significantly worse across America year after year over the past decade, one state has been more successful than any other in bucking the nationwide trend.

The efforts of public health officials and hospital workers in Michigan have been well documented over the past two years, altogether demonstrating an impressive 56% reduction in the number of opioid patients the state has. The state has also experienced a 26% drop in opioid abuse. Both declines significantly beat national trends of similar patients over the same period of time.

Published in Cell Genomics, “The Michigan Genomics Initiative: A biobank linking genotypes and electronic clinical records in Michigan Medicine patients” illustrates that opportunistic biobank sampling within single health systems provides a unique and complementary resource for exploring the genetics of complex diseases.