Prescription opioid poisoning across urban and rural areas: identifying vulnerable groups and geographic areas

Aims To determine (1) whether prescription opioid poisoning (PO) hospital discharges spread across space over time, (2) the locations of ‘hot-spots’ of PO-related hospital discharges, (3) how features of the local environment contribute to the growth in PO-related hospital discharges and (4) where each environmental feature makes the strongest contribution. Design Hierarchical Bayesian Poisson space–time analysis to relate annual discharges from...