Project Abstract Summary
The Health & Hospital Corporation of Marion County, doing business as Marion County Public Health Department (MCPHD) is applying for Component A and Component B, but not Component C, of the Overdose Data to Action: Limiting Overdose through Collaborative Actions in Localities (OD2A: LOCAL). The purpose of the MCPHD OD2A: LOCAL program is to enhance fatal and non-fatal overdose data collection, analyses, and dissemination in order to reduce the number of fatal overdoses in Marion County, home to Indianapolis, Indiana. MCPHD and its many local partners will use these data to provide culturally appropriate, equitable, and timely harm reduction strategies, as well as linkage to care for people who use drugs (PWUD) in community prevention, public safety, and healthcare prevention settings in Marion County.
The MCPHD OD2A: LOCAL team expects to achieve the following short-term outcomes: increased use of navigators to link PWUD to care and services; improved rapid and timely identification of changes in illicit drug market; increased data sharing and data use that informs prevention and response efforts; increased partnerships, collaborations, and bidirectional referrals among organizations working in overdose preventions; increased access to harm reduction services for PWUD, including increased distribution of naloxone across settings; increased capacity of staff within the workforce to connect PWUD to care and services; increased clinician awareness of evidence-based practices for pain management; and increased clinician expertise and confidence to provide equitable opioid use disorder (OUD) and stimulant use disorder (StUD) care. MCPHD OD2A: LOCAL will also achieve intermediate-term outcomes as well, including enhanced ability of programs to respond to overdose trends for groups disproportionately affected by the overdose epidemic; increased use of standardized indicators on toxicologic findings and linkage to care to support local and national surveillance; expanded and improved use of surveillance, program evaluation, and community data to drive prevention action that are community/population appropriate, to inform the implementation and improvement of prevention and response efforts for groups disproportionately affected by the overdose epidemic; increased number of PWUD that are engaged in care and harm reduction services, especially for groups disproportionately affected by the overdose epidemic, accounting for increased linkages to care and engagement in care across various settings including community, healthcare, and public safety settings; increased equitable delivery and improved access to care/services and long-term recovery among PWUD as well as those previously underserved by overdose prevention programs and the healthcare system; decreased high risk opi
oid prescribing and increased use of evidence-based pain care; and improved health system and clinician capacity to provide care for OUD and StUD. Finally, the MCPHD OD2A: LOCAL team will achieve the following long-term goals as well: decreased fatal drug overdoses, overall; decreased nonfatal drug overdoses, overall; decreased illicit opioid stimulant use, including co-use with other substances, and decreased prevalence of OUD and StUD; improved health equity among groups disproportionately affected by the overdose epidemic and those previously underserved by overdose prevention programs and the healthcare system overall, identifying and closing gaps in access to care and services; Increased adoption of harm reduction strategies and principles, including those of empathy, non-judgment, and meeting people where they are; Expanded identification, tracking, and mitigation of emerging drug threats; and collection and use of data on linkage to and retention in care among people at high risk of overdose to improve care.