Utilizing grant funding from the HEALing Communities Research, we contracted an epidemiologist to steer the cost to develop a framework for gathering, analyzing, and disseminating countywide knowledge from native stakeholders to information data-driven initiatives aimed toward lowering overdose deaths. dr. Corinna Noel, assistant professor of follow in Cornell College’s Division of Public and Ecosystem Well being, coordinated with all three county legislation enforcement businesses to uniformly report overdoses to the nationwide Overdose Mapping and Enforcement Program (ODMAP), which gives knowledge on suspected to an overdose nearly in actual time. Simply in time, because it turned out. Little did we all know that a couple of months later a world pandemic would wreak havoc and that having native knowledge would turn out to be a lifesaver.

Knowledge is like rubbish. You higher know what you are going to do with it earlier than you decide it up. Mark Twain

Cayuga County Psychological Well being because the venture supervisor facilitated the work of teams with taking part accomplice businesses and an epidemiologist to find out what knowledge we wanted to gather to assist us perceive the overdose state of affairs within the county and reply shortly by offering well timed info, sources and assist. We did not need to burden businesses with gathering tons of information simply to have it. We now have thought so much about the kind of knowledge we need to acquire and the aim it serves. The speedy purpose was to save lots of lives and stop folks from dying of overdoses so they may have one other probability at life.

Legislation enforcement businesses are sharing near-real-time details about when, the place and to whom overdoses are occurring, which has launched the Submit-Overdose Outreach Initiative to interact individuals who have just lately overdosed (and their households) and join them with providers and therapy if they’re prepared. It is a key level of entry as a result of persons are at excessive threat of repeated overdoses and even demise. We additionally study what kinds of substances have been suspected of being concerned in overdoses, which helps us monitor drug use traits locally and form acceptable responses.

ODMAP knowledge helps reveal demographic traits, equivalent to age and gender disparities in overdoses. Recognition of the pattern of elevated overdose and demise charges amongst feminine residents through the pandemic resulted in an elevated deal with this inhabitants and a method to recruit extra feminine restoration advocates as assist. We additionally observed a rise in drug overdoses amongst younger folks early within the pandemic, and we responded with a media outreach to tell the general public and educate mother and father about what they’ll do to maintain medication secure of their properties.

An epidemiologist makes use of ODMAP knowledge to create warmth maps of overdose hotspots. This visible illustration provides us a greater concept of ​​the place overdoses are concentrated within the county, in addition to particular neighborhoods within the metropolis of Auburn. This permits us to coordinate geographically focused outreach and distribution of Narcan in hard-hit neighborhoods. We realized that the overdose demise price was increased in rural areas, which led us to prioritize these distant cities and villages. Confidentiality to guard the id of overdose victims and their location is a precedence. The statistics reveal solely combination figures and de-identified info. Overdose maps present an space of ​​excessive focus, by no means a selected avenue or handle.

Regionally collected knowledge additionally informs the work of the Overdose Job Drive, which focuses on the wants of high-risk people, in addition to the Overdose Surge Response Crew, which has outlined what constitutes a spike overdose based mostly on native parameters and historic overdose traits, and developed a plan response within the occasion of a spike in overdoses within the county.

With out knowledge you’re blind and deaf and in the course of the freeway. Geoffrey Moore

At this level, I believe we have constructed a knowledge system that enables us to look again at the place we have been, see the place we’re going, and regulate course when mandatory. We’re within the lucky state of affairs of getting three years value of native knowledge that describes traits and adjustments over time and informs future selections on the county and company stage. The info can be used to assist us consider the affect of our interventions and applications. For instance, figuring out that extra overdose witnesses than first responders now administer Narcan on the scene of an overdose and that victims survive 94% of the time tells us that our outreach and coaching program is working and has helped save 109 lives. The world of drug habit problems, drug provide and native influences is consistently altering, which is why it’s essential to spend money on and keep native knowledge infrastructure to observe these adjustments in close to real-time and be capable to predict, forestall and reply as wanted.

Newly secured grants via the Workplace of Justice Help and the Opioid Settlement Fund embrace funding to proceed native overdose knowledge monitoring and make what we have lengthy envisioned a actuality: a publicly accessible and interactive overdose knowledge dashboard for Cayuga County. Not many states, not to mention counties, have the capability to supply present and significant knowledge that residents can entry and profit from. Our efforts over the previous 3.5 years have laid the groundwork for this precious device that may assist residents perceive the overdose state of affairs of their county and the place they’ll discover sources. Our epidemiologist developed this dashboard, and the county IT division has it on the Therapeutic Cayuga web page at cayugacounty.us/overdosedata.

The dashboard will likely be up to date each month, and folks will be capable to see the earlier month’s overdose knowledge within the “Month-to-month Snapshot” tab, in addition to traits over time for suspected overdoses, suspect substances concerned and Narcan administration within the “Developments” tab. . Drop-down menus can be utilized to specify the time-frame for which one wish to obtain the chosen knowledge. The “Demographics” tab gives info on the age teams and gender of overdose victims. The “Areas” tab illustrates the density of overdose occurrences in several components of the county. Below the “Native Sources” tab, you should utilize the drop-down menu to seek out wall-mounted Narcan and drug field places, a hyperlink to free on-line Narcan coaching and the cayugacounty.us/narcan electronic mail service web site, and therapy and restoration providers.

We might love to listen to what you consider the dashboard and respect your suggestions to make it even higher and simpler to make use of. Browse the dashboard and on the backside of every tab is a hyperlink to the person survey bit.ly/CayugaDashboardSurvey, which can take about 10 minutes. As a “thanks” to your time, we’ll electronic mail you a $10 Amazon present card after you full the survey. Under is the QR code for the dashboard evaluation survey: