Massachusetts Prescription Drug Overdose (PDO) Grant: A Public Health and Public Safety Collaboration to Expand Crisis Care, Treatment Access, and Long-Term Recovery - The purpose of the MA PDO grant is to reduce opioid related overdose deaths among Massachusetts residents in selected high need communities by enhancing and expanding overdose prevention and response strategies and increasing access to training and capacity building services for first responders and other key community stakeholders. As the applicant, the MDPH Bureau of Substance Addiction Services (BSAS) proposes to prioritize strategic investments in communities where Black and Latinx individuals are experiencing opioid overdose burden at the greatest rates. Massachusetts loses almost 2,000 people per year to opioid overdose with a number of high-risk populations and communities still disproportionally impacted. Preliminary state data show that in 2020 there were 2,103 confirmed and estimated opioid-related overdose deaths, an estimated 128 more deaths compared with 2019 or 6.5% increase. From 2016 to 2019, overdose death rates in MA decreased by 3.4% in White individuals, and only by 0.8% in Latinx individuals. At the same time, rates increased by 5.3% in Black individuals. Based on this data, MDPH will ensure that funds are directed at the most marginalized populations and address systemic racial and ethnic disparities in access to overdose prevention services. MDPH-BSAS will select municipalities to assess their existing overdose prevention and response strategies, identify barriers to access, and pilot culturally tailored and evidence-informed innovations. We seek to fund three high risk communities annually over the five-year project period to implement the following activities: 1) Conduct community assessments to identify existing infrastructure and landscape of overdose prevention and response; 2) Support community grantees to propose and pilot innovative, culturally tailored, and evidence-informed overdose prevention strategies designed to serve Black and Latinx individuals who are at risk of opioid overdose; 3) Expand and enhance training opportunities for public safety personnel and first responders utilizing the Safety and Health Integration of the Enforcement of Laws on Drugs (SHIELD) training program, an evidence-based model designed to boost police practices that address health needs of people who use opioids; to promote officer health and safety; to build linkages between law enforcement, public health, and harm reduction; and to improve the role of policing in public health responses to the opioid overdose crisis; and 4) Evaluate implemented overdose prevention strategies to better characterize the needs of Black and Latinx individuals impacted by the opioid crisis and to design culturally responsive overdose prevention and response programs in MA. Lastly, the PDO Grant Advisory Council, an interdisciplinary group that will include representatives from the Office of the Governor or appointee, MDPH, the MA Department of Mental Health, the New England High Intensity Drug Trafficking area, Northeastern University, Social Science Research and Evaluation, and other relevant partners to be determined, will guide these activities. We anticipate the MA PDO grant activities will prevent overdose, increase public safety competencies in overdose prevention and response, and expand access to services and knowledge to achieve life-saving results.
