President Trump on Thursday will direct the acting secretary of Health and Human Services to declare a public health emergency over the opioid epidemic, though he will stop short of declaring a "national emergency," which is language that he employed in August.

The opioid epidemic, which involved more than 33,000 overdose deaths in 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has affected communities all over the U.S. whose members overdose on drugs such as heroin, fentanyl, and prescription painkiller OxyContin.

In recent years, death rates from opioids in rural areas have surpassed those in U.S. cities. The public health declaration would expand the use of telemedicine for prescribing so that a doctor could treat a patient in a remote area where fewer physicians are available to prescribe medicines that help patients with symptoms of withdrawal from opioids.

The declaration will also shift resources so that patients who have HIV/AIDS resulting from opioid use involving needle sharing will receive treatment and prevention services, and will allow federal health officials to more quickly hire specialists in addiction treatment. The Department of Labor will be directed to issue grants that will assist displaced workers affected by the epidemic.

Trump is expected to deliver a speech on the opioid crisis Thursday afternoon, in which he will direct other agencies to "reduce the death and devastation by the opioid epidemic," according to a senior administration official.

Senior administration officials said the public health emergency designation was a more appropriate response for the epidemic, because the national emergency designation is used for national disasters, which are for shorter periods of time and for specific geographical areas.

"It doesn't offer authority that is helpful here," a senior administration official said. "There has been some false reporting about this."

The official said the national emergency designation would not allow officials to waive certain limitations, such as allowing Medicaid to reimburse facilities that have more than 16 beds for people with addiction disorders.

A public health declaration lasts about 90 days but can be renewed multiple times until officials determine that the declaration is no longer necessary. Additional funding will not be added by the declaration, however.

Declaring the epidemic a national emergency would have been unusual for a public health issue. Public health emergencies were declared for the 2016 declaration for the Zika virus in Puerto Rico and the 2012 declaration in New York following Hurricane Sandy. Still, such a declaration has been done before for a medical issue, such as former President Barack Obama's declaration on the swine flu epidemic.

The recommendation to use the "national emergency" declaration came from the Commission on Combatting Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, which is overseen by Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and was created by Trump. Senior White House Officials noted on a phone call with reporters Thursday the report had urged the declaration be made under either the Public Health Service Act or the Stafford Act, the first of which is the "public health emegency" declaration and the latter of which tends to deal with natural disasters and had been widely reported as the direction in which the administration would go.

Christie praised Trump for his "bold action" and reiterated the language of his commission's recommendations in a Twitter post, backing up what White House officials said.

"By using the Public Health Service Act, as we recommended, the president is showing an unprecedented commitment to fighting this epidemic and placing the weight of the presidency behind saving lives across the country," he said in a statement.

Christie said a follow-up report with additional recommendations would be coming Nov. 1.

My statement on @POTUS Donald J. Trump’s Action on the opioid crisis: pic.twitter.com/nmNHGCIwIR — Governor Christie (@GovChristie) October 26, 2017

Trump had used the term " national emergency" in August and White House staff since then has been analyzing the legal implications of the declaration, which involves understanding how far the administration can go and how long it can focus on the crisis.

"The opioid crisis is an emergency, and I'm saying officially right now it is an emergency," Trump said in August. "It's a national emergency. We're going to spend a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of money on the opioid crisis. … We're going to draw it up and we're going to make it a national emergency. It is a serious problem the likes of which we have never had."