International Overdose Awareness Day is an opportunity to spotlight the importance of being prepared to respond when overdose spikes occur. Overdose spikes can develop rapidly, leaving public health and safety agencies with a narrow window to respond. In Alaska, public health, public safety, tribal health, treatment and recovery organizations, and community partners used a tabletop exercise developed by ASTHO and the Overdose Response Strategy (ORS) to test a statewide overdose spike response protocol and identify where preparedness efforts needed to improve. ORS is a unique public health and public safety partnership between the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through their support of the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program and the CDC Foundation. ORS connects public health and public safety agencies so they can share timely information and support innovative, evidence-based strategies to reduce overdoses and save lives. Michael Jurasek, a CDC Foundation public health analyst with the ORS program serving Alaska, discusses how the exercise helped Alaska strengthen notification systems, engage populations at heightened risk, and build relationships with new partners. He also shares how lessons from the exercise were put into practice during a real-world overdose cluster and why jurisdictions should treat preparedness as an ongoing, iterative process.
Public Health Responds to the Overdose Crisis | ASTHO
Overdose Spike Preparedness Exercise Tabletop in a Box | ASTHO
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