Officials from the Delaware Division of Public Health (DPH) announced that the agency was recently awarded a multimillion-dollar Overdose Data to Action grant (OD2A) from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention to help reduce fatal drug overdoses in Delaware.
The grant period began Sept. 1 and runs through Aug. 31, 2022. The state will receive $5.8 million each year for the three-year period.
Delaware’s newly created Office of Health Crisis Response (OHCR), which is currently dedicated to addressing the opioid crisis, is responsible for managing the grant and working with partner agencies to implement activities geared toward reducing drug overdose deaths in the state. The main components of the grant are surveillance and prevention.
In 2018, there were 400 overdose deaths across the state, an increase of 16 percent from the 2017 total of 345 deaths, according to the Division of Forensic Science. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ranked Delaware as number six in the nation for per-capita overdose deaths in 2017. The state also is ranked first in the nation for the per-capita prescribing of both high-dose and long-acting opioid medications, according to the CDC.
“Up and down our state, we have more work to do to reduce the heartbreaking toll that the opioid epidemic is taking on thousands of Delawareans and their families,” said Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) Secretary Dr. Kara Odom Walker. “This additional funding will help us identify trends and collaborate in ways that were not possible before. Put simply, this funding will help us save lives.”
The OD2A grant will allow Delaware to capture data more accurately and rapidly so that it can be shared more easily with key partners working on the opioid crisis. Some of the stakeholders include: DPH, the Delaware Department of Safety and Homeland Security (DSHS), the Delaware Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health (DSAMH), the Delaware Department of Correction (DOC), the Delaware Department of Justice (DOJ), the Delaware National Guard, local emergency medical services, local and state police, and federal drug agencies.
The prevention component of the grant will allow OHCR and its collaborators to continue our work to educate medical providers on alternatives to opioid medications for the management of chronic pain and best practices to ensure controlled substances are prescribed safely when necessary.
“Federal, state and local partners must work together on this complex health crisis,” said Rattay. “This funding also will allow us to work with our community partners such as doctors and pharmacists who are on the front lines of the epidemic and play a vital role in reversing the alarming trends that we are seeing here in Delaware and elsewhere in the country.”
Additionally, Delaware will use the funding to implement a new awareness campaign to reduce the stigma associated with addiction. The campaign will encourage individuals to identify and use available resources, such as HelpIsHereDE.com, or the OpiRescue Delaware smartphone app, which provides information on where to find the life-saving drug naloxone, as well as step-by-step instructions on how to respond to an overdose, including administration of naloxone.
Although the grant period is for three years, Delaware will be required to resubmit its application to the CDC for annual funding.
