With support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Prevention Institute and its partners–Big Cities Health Coalition, ChangeLab Solutions, SheRay’s and Associates, and RTI International– are working collectively to increase an understanding of the science and evidence-base for preventing substance use, misuse, and overdose; build capacity of state and local governments, particularly those involved in allocating opioid settlement funds such as Attorneys General and other decision makers, to make decisions informed by science, contextual, and lived experience to reduce infectious disease and overdose in their jurisdictions; and strengthen partnerships to enhance the effectiveness of using opioid settlement funding. The project will draw on core Prevention Institute tools, frameworks, and experience, and resources from the project partners to guide curriculum and tool development and capacity-building activities. The work will highlight the efforts of community members most impacted in the opioid overdose epidemic by engaging them and organizations representing their needs throughout all aspects of the project.
Outcomes of the project include:
- Increased understanding in jurisdictions making decisions about the use of opioid settlement funds about the evidence base and the relationship between strategies across a continuum;
- Increased use of tools, frameworks, and materials that support substance misuse prevention and harm reduction;
- Increased coordination across partners, sectors, and jurisdictions in support of opioid misuse prevention, harm reduction, and community-informed decisions relating to the use of settlement funds.
In the long-term, the learnings and outcomes of this project will strengthen and expand a continuum of practice and evidence alongside deeper community engagement in planning and decision-making; and forge stronger collaboration between Attorneys General working on opioid settlements, public health, city governments and other jurisdictions implementing them in support of improving outcomes.
Written Materials
PI and each of the project partners authored written briefs and guidance materials to inform local opioid remediation efforts and use of settlement dollars. Download thesse documents from the "Resources" section above.
As part of this project, Prevention Institute has pulled together a set of online resources intended to offer guidance to policymakers, health departments, advocates, service providers, and other decision makers like yourselves as they consider how to invest opioid settlement funding. This site includes planning, implementation, and evaluation resources designed to support those advocating for and implementing opioid remediation strategies in evidence-informed decision making. It also includes resources for those looking to understand the opioid settlement agreements and examples of how jurisdictions around the country are implementing strategies that support primary prevention, harm reduction, treatment, long-term recovery, and overdose prevention.
These resources, which were compiled in July of 2024, are a starting point for continued research, conversation, and planning. We highly encourage you to explore the site, engage with and reflect on the included resources, and share the site with other partners and stakeholders who might find it helpful. The site is best viewed on a desktop or laptop. Visit the resource hub here.
Webinar Recordings:
Supporting Decision Makers Using Opioid Settlement Funds: A Snapshot of Spending and Opportunities (4/15/24)
Opioid settlement funds provide a critical opportunity to invest in public health approaches for substance use and overdose prevention. In this webinar, Prevention Institute and Big Cities Health Coalition invite you to learn more about the activities these funds currently support. Jennifer Kolker (Clinical Professor of Health Management and Policy and co-lead of the Policy Core, Urban Health Collaborative, Dornsife School of Public Health, Drexel University) shares preliminary insights into opioid settlement fund planning. Jeanene Fowler (Executive Director of Maricopa County Department of Public Health) offers a local perspective on their work in a county that serves both one of the largest cities in the U.S. (Phoenix) and rural areas.
Supporting Decision Makers Using Opioid Settlement Funds: What's in it for the People? A Conversation on Engagement (5/21/24)
This webinar, co-hosted by Prevention Institute and SheRay’s & Associates, LLC, focuses on the importance of engaging People with Lived and Living Experience (PWLLE) in decisions about the use of opioid settlement funding. Explore equity and inclusion as key principles for considering the uses of settlement funds. Gain insights into how state and local jurisdictions have engaged PWLLE as decision-makers. Tracy Johnson, managing partner of SheRay's & Associates LLC, facilitates this conversation and engages a dynamic group of panelists in sharing their experiences, knowledge, and insights on working with PWLLE and opportunities to center them in discussions about using settlement funds. Panelists include Dr. Marketa Robinson (Executive Director of Urban Minority Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Outreach Program, Dayton), Michael J. Nozile Sr. (President and CEO of Gang Alternative, Inc.), Dr. Anthony Carl Pickett (Medical Director/CEO of Maternity Center of Vermont and Vice Chief, Laborist Department at California Hospital Medical Center), and Jeremy Triblett (Prevention Integration Manager at Milwaukee County Behavioral Health Services).
Supporting Decision Makers Using Opioid Settlement Funds: Planning for Prevention and Measuring Impact (7/16/24)
As states and jurisdictions continue to plan for the use of opioid settlement funds, it is critical that they consider the importance of primary prevention strategies, impact measurement, and sustainability. In the first part of this webinar, briefly hear from Prevention Institute about how decision-makers can leverage primary prevention in opioid remediation activities and how they complement and strengthen harm reduction, treatment, and long-term recovery strategies. Also learn from a team at RTI International about the considerations for monitoring, evaluating, and tracking progress and outcomes of strategies and activities facilitated through the use of opioid settlement funding over multiple years. Explore principles for effective monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and hear how decision-makers at the state and community level can adapt and apply an M&E Framework to ensure transparency, accountability, and sustainability.
This project is supported by Cooperative Agreement Number NU38OT000305 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors at Prevention Institute and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Department of Health and Human Services or the CDC.
Prevention Institute's Past Experience Addressing Substance Use and Overdose Prevention
Starting in 2017, Prevention Institute has applied its Adverse Community Experiences and Resilience (ACE|R) framework to address opioid and other substance misuse. From 2017 to 2019, Prevention Institute partnered with the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services to support a public health approach to preventing opioid and other substance misuse in the 12 most highly impacted rural communities in the state through the development of comprehensive plans to prevent opioid misuse and combat the overdose crisis through the Community Collective Impact Model for Change initiative. Through this project, we helped those counties build partnerships with city agencies such as public transit, housing, parks and recreation, libraries, and the school system. Additionally, Prevention Institute has written extensively on how a community trauma informed approach can help to address and mitigate the exposures, behaviors, and high levels of hopelessness that fuel the opioid crisis including: authoring a chapter in A Public Health Guide to Ending the Opioid Epidemic; guest blogs on the Health Affairs and National Association of County and City Health Officials websites, including To Address Opioids And Diseases Of Despair, Communities Must Build Resilience and Opioid Settlement Funds Must Go Where They’re Needed Most—Treatment and Prevention; and Applying a Social Determinants of Health Approach to the Opioid Epidemic in Health Promotion and Practice.
If you have any questions or feedback about this project, please do not hesitate to reach out to Juan González at juan@preventioninstitute.org or Dana Fields-Johnson at dana@preventioninstitute.org.