Good Samaritan Legislation Seeks to Reduce Opioid Overdose Deaths in MA More information is available in the Fact Sheet and the Information Sheet.

THE OVERDOSE PREVENTION TRAINING INITIATIVE

Public Health Crisis

Deaths from accidental opiate overdose have been increasing nationally and across Massachusetts.  Accidental overdose is tracked as part of “unintentional poisoning.”  Its impact in Massachusetts:

• In Massachusetts, the crude rate for total poisoning deaths (from all agents combined) increased 119% from 1990 to 2005.  The proportion of these which were associated with opioids increased from 28% (in 1990) to almost 68% (in 2005).

According to the April 2008 Massachusetts Death Report, opioid overdose deaths continue to rise. The report documented the following increases in Massachusetts:

• Deaths caused by overdoses of heroin and other opioids, such as Oxycontin, rose by more than 7% per year from 2000 to 2006.
• Fully two-thirds of all poisonings reported to DPH during 2006 were the result of opioid overdoses.

In 2006, 637 people died in Massachusetts from opioid poisoning, up from 544 in 2005.

What We're Doing About It

At SPHERE, we see overdose prevention as uniquely compatible with our work on HIV, hepatitis and harm reduction capacity-building in the drug and alcohol treatment community. Like HIV, Hepatitis, and harm reduction, overdose prevention challenges our assumptions about what drug and alcohol treatment should or should not include. In all these situations, we emphasize the importance of approaching treatment, including discussion of consequences of use, in ways that include clients and support clients’ decisions to abstain and pursue recovery, risk reduction and support

Many accidental opiate overdoses occur after a period of abstinence from drug use – whether a person was in drug treatment, the hospital, a detox program, or jail. This period of abstinence can result in a decreased tolerance which, in turn, creates an overdose risk factor, if use resumes. Because we know that relapse is a part of recovery and the recovery process, education during drug and alcohol treatment is an important prevention strategy and one that can be very effective.

To focus our efforts on capacity building programming around overdose prevention, Health Imperatives’ SPHERE program launched The Overdose Prevention Training Initiative in winter 2007.  

The Initiative designs and provides cutting-edge training and technical assistance to drug and alcohol treatment providers.  Our services address assumptions about undertaking overdose prevention work while nurturing new skills, new practices, new forms of client support, and new activities. Although many of these activities are specific to drug and alcohol treatment programs, some can be adapted and used by other health and human service programs. 

The Initiative provides training, resources and technical assistance to a variety of service settings, including drug and alcohol treatment, criminal justice, corrections, HIV/AIDS, community health and mental health, homeless services, and school health.

The goals of the Overdose Prevention Training Initiative are:

1. To support drug and alcohol treatment providers to incorporate opiate overdose prevention messages, screening, and education into their work;
2. To support drug and alcohol treatment providers to become opiate overdose prevention advocates; and
3. To build provider capacity to prevent and respond to accidental opiate overdoses.

The services of the Initiative, originally designed for drug and alcohol treatment providers, have been used by other health and human service providers who work in a variety of settings.

 SPHERE’s overdose prevention services include:

• Trainings – Includes both half day onsite trainings and regional (and onsite) full day trainings
• Resources – Information and materials that will help providers start conversations with clients and which can be distributed to clients
• Action Planning Tools – Guidelines, worksheets and other tools to help you plan for the future, take action, and make meaningful changes
• Statewide Surveys
• Access to internet sources of support
• Links to research, resources, and organizations

Contact us and let us know about your needs as well as your successes in overdose prevention! Your feedback is important to us.

For more information about Health Imperatives and other services provided by the agency, please visit Prevention & Community Services. For more information on The Statewide Homeless/HIV Integration Project (SH/HIP), click here.