Healing Cortland
Healing Cortland is a community-wide, data-driven initiative to reduce opioid-related overdose deaths in Cortland County. With staff support from CACTC, Healing Cortland brings together partners from across our community and region, along with those directly impacted, to implement effective strategies to save lives.
HEALing Communities Study
The project Healing Cortland is currently taking part in the the HEALing Communities Study (HCS), which runs from July 1, 2022 until December 31, 2023. NIH and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration launched the HCS to investigate how tools for preventing and treating opioid misuse and OUD are most effective at the local level. The Healing Cortland initiative will take lessons learned from the HCS to create a sustainable approach that serves Cortland County after this grant-funded project is over. For more information or to get involved in the HEALing Communities Study, click this link.
Local Data Collection
The County Implementation Team has been collecting local data to inform decision-making and guide the project. Some of the data that are being collected currently include:
# of fatal overdoses in Cortland County
type of drug, date of death, gender, and ethnicity
# of non-fatal overdoses in the City of Cortland
Date, location, gender, and race demographics of non-fatal overdoes
# of naloxone kits distributed in Cortland County
# of naloxone administrations in Cortland County
NYS Opioid-related Data and Dashboard
The New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) Opioid Prevention Program provides county-level public-facing data (found here) that anyone can access including:
Annual NYS Opioid Summary Reports (These provide an overview of opioid-related mortality and morbidity across NYS)
New York State County Opioid Quarterly Reports (These provide opioid overdose information (deaths, emergency department (ED) visits, and hospitalizations) by county.
New York State Opioid Dashboard (This is an interactive visual presentation of indicators tracking opioid data at state and county levels. It monitors fatal and nonfatal opioid overdoses, opioid prescribing, opioid use disorder treatment, and the overall opioid overdose burden)
CACTC and Data for Healing Cortland
Substance use is one of many areas of data collection and strategy implementation that CACTC has worked in. CACTC has a long history of working to make local data a meaningful tool for decision-making.
The Healing Cortland Website has resources containing local opioid-related data that have been developed by Healing Cortland staff at CACTC. Here is an example of what's available:
Healing Cortland Needs Assessment: Opioid-Related Overdose, Prevention, and Treatment in Cortland County
Healing Cortland Opioid Data Dashboard: compiles state and local data and creates a "story" or sequence of visualizations that convey opioid-related trends over time.
CACTC also offers data support upon request. For example:
How to collect data for grants
Connections to organizations collecting relevant data in Cortland County
Ideas for fact sheets or other visual representations of data
CACTC Opioid-related Data Reports
The HEALing Communities Study is meant to complement and build on existing efforts in Cortland County related to opioid education and prevention.
The first step in developing implementation strategies is conducting a community-wide needs assessment that identifies baseline measures, existing service capacity, and gaps in data and resources across the prevention, treatment, and recovery spectrum.
Harm reduction services are focused on keeping people who use opioids or other substances safer from detrimental effects. These can include the evidence-based strategies such as the distribution of naloxone and syringe service programs (SSP) that mitigate impacts of infectious diseases related to intravenous drug use and promote drug user health.
In this strategy report, we will describe community resources, identify existing data and gaps, and provide a brief overview of literature that better informs our efforts to reduce overdose deaths in Cortland County.