The drug overdose epidemic is a significant public health issue in the United States. In response to the complex and evolving nature of the overdose epidemic, state and local health departments are implementing a variety of current and emerging practices. As such, it is important to improve our understanding of these efforts in ways that can be readily shared with practitioners as they consider how to adapt interventions to their local context.

Description

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funds state and local health departments, via the Overdose Data to Action (OD2A) program, to strengthen overdose surveillance, prevention, and evaluation efforts and use data to inform program improvements. CDC created the OD2A Case Studies Toolkit to disseminate information to others in the field about health departments’ efforts. The toolkit includes ten case studies covering a range of overdose prevention activities, including stigma reduction, harm reduction, public safety-led post-overdose outreach, linkage to care, state and local integration, and adverse childhood experiences prevention. We will describe the toolkit, highlighting the development, dissemination, and intended use of the case studies.

Lessons Learned

These case studies directly respond to requests for assistance from the field and serve as a resource to add to our understanding of overdose prevention efforts. Each case study revealed unique insights on core components of health department overdose prevention efforts, such as key partners, data used to inform prevention activities, barriers and facilitators to implementation, evaluation of outcomes, and sustainability. Practitioners in the field can reference this content to tailor planning of current or future efforts.

Recommendations

Prioritizing the dissemination of in-depth information about current and emerging practices related to overdose prevention fosters peer-to-peer learning, addresses gaps in knowledge, and expands awareness of promising practices.