How Can Data Help Fight America's Continuing Opioid Crisis?

The opioid crisis is shifting, not ending. The CDC's National Center for Health Statistics estimated that more than 100,000 drug overdose deaths occurred in the United States between April 2020 to April 2021, an increase of 28.5% from the same period the year before. As states continue to clamp down on abuse of legal prescriptions, the prevalence and variety of opioids and other illegal drugs continues to grow. These drugs and associated drug incident data pose increased challenges for public safety and public health agencies alike. Some states and localities are successfully using data analytics and dashboards to combat the opioid crisis – linking public health and public safety data to gain understanding and inform operational and policy decisions.

To better understand how evidence-based decision-making can transform the public health response to opioids and other drugs, Governing and SAS are hosting a 30-minute webinar on this vital topic on June 21 at 10 a.m. Pacific/1 p.m. Eastern.

Whether you're a health and human services leader, a law enforcement official, or an IT strategist, this webcast will be an important opportunity to understand how better data and analytics can be used in the fight against opioids.