Increase the Use of Linked Data Sets to Improve Knowledge of Trends, Respond Rapidly to Emerging Drug Trends, and Focus Resources on High-Risk Populations.
Efforts to address illicit substance use and misuse may be hampered by gaps in information exchanges that prevent timely access to data that can help stakeholders make informed decisions. In many communities, public health, behavioral health, and public safety agencies are working together to appropriately link and integrate data sets that improve overdose tracking and early detection, inform interventions, and focus resources and treatment where they are needed most. Data dashboards are a tool for combining and analyzing information from multiple sources and sharing it with a wide range of stakeholders. Dashboards make information on drug-related issues accessible (e.g., overdose deaths, emergency response calls, prescription rates) and allow users to create customized reports, tables, or maps.
Early communication of real-time drug toxicity and accurate understanding of death rates and the drugs involved in overdose deaths are essential components of planning cross-sector interventions. Strategic responses that include crime labs, coroners, and medical examiners can help improve the consistency of death investigation practices, toxicological analysis and interpretation of findings, and death certification reporting. Further, multiagency, multidisciplinary overdose fatality review teams share information on overdose deaths from all sectors and critically examine the information for trends, system gaps, and opportunities for collaboration. The case-specific, in-depth review provides context to the population-level information included in data dashboards.
COSSUP supports activities that:
- Implement or expand data integration across agencies/systems to better identify target population needs and resource gaps, as well as improve program planning and decision making.
- Implement or expand data dashboards, an information management tool that visually tracks, analyzes, and displays key data and metrics.
- Implement or expand overdose fatality review teams, multidisciplinary teams that meet regularly to conduct confidential reviews of fatal overdose cases to inform local overdose prevention planning.
- Implement or enhance opioid responses that include crime labs, medical examiners, and coroners to improve the timeliness and quality of drug mortality data that can help support public health responses.
COSSUP GRANTEES LINKING DATA SETS TO IDENTIFY TRENDS AND FOCUS RESOURCES
Grantee Projects
Tennessee Department of Health
Tennessee
Tennessee Department of Health
Tennessee
Vermont State Agency of Human Services
Vermont
Vermont State Agency of Human Services
Vermont
West Allis Health Department
Wisconsin
West Allis Health Department
Wisconsin
