The goal of mmequiv is to provide users the ability to
calculate standardized Morphine Milligram Equivalent (MME) doses for
prescription opioid medications for research purposes.
mmequiv’s API wrapper functions takes information about
prescription opioids used by study participants and directly interfaces
with the NIH HEAL MME
Online Calculator API from R to calculate MME and daily MME based on
several standardized definitions. Because the NIH HEAL MME Online
Calculator API has a rate limit of 50 requests per 15 minutes,
mmequiv also provides functions that perform the same
calculations locally without needing to call the API when the user has
large data sets (or when the user may not have access to the
internet).
mmequiv is intended for the same purposes as the NIH
HEAL MME Online Calculator - as a data resource for: research,
analytical purposes using claims or dispensing data, and surveillance of
population-level medication utilization.
Important: Users should be aware of the caveats and
limitations of the NIH HEAL MME Online Calculator - these also apply to
mmequiv:
The data collection tool is NOT intended for any clinical decision-making by clinicians while prescribing opioids. The MME conversion factors in this survey DO NOT constitute any clinical guidance for prescribing or recommendations for converting patients from one form of opioid analgesic to another.
To read more about the NIH HEAL MME Online Calculator, see Adams, et al. (2025).
You can install mmequiv from CRAN using the following
code:
install.packages("mmequiv")You can install the development version of mmequiv like
so:
# install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github('KennethATaylor/mmequiv')In addition to citing the original paper by Adams, et al. (2025), consider citing this package. You can obtain information needed to cite the package by running:
citation("mmequiv")