The nation is in the midst of an unprecedented opioid epidemic. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 107,735 people in the United States died from a drug overdose between July 2021 and July 2022. Rural states have the highest rate of overdose-related deaths.
Common challenges in U.S. rural communities include:
- Poverty
- Inadequate health care and social services
- Limited broadband access and transportation
- Increasing difficulty attracting and retaining a health care workforce
In 2018, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) launched the Rural Communities Opioid Response Program (RCORP). Its purpose is to reduce the morbidity and mortality of substance use disorders (SUDs), including opioid use disorder (OUD), in rural communities at the highest risk for SUDs. Since then, RCORP has come to represent the largest concentrated rural investment in HRSA’s history.
The purpose of RCORP Behavioral Health Care Technical Assistance (RCORP-BHCTA) is to:
- Provide TA to RCORP grantees to support their efforts to implement and sustain behavioral health and SUD prevention, treatment, and recovery services
- Identify and/or develop, promote, and maintain tools and resources
- Develop and enhance meaningful partnerships
- Identify and strengthen rural communities’ capacity
The RCORP-TA portal supports these purposes by providing grantees access to a repository of resources and tools, peer grantees, and platform to request TA.
Browse active grantees on this site for more information.
HRSA’s Role in Addressing the Opioid Crisis
HRSA is addressing this epidemic by:
- Expanding access to behavioral health services through health centers and other primary care settings
- Using telehealth to treat OUD
- Connecting partners to opioid-treatment-related resources
- Sharing best practices and regional approaches
- Increasing OUD training in primary care
- Informing policy and future investments
- Addressing opioid-related poisonings and overdoses
HRSA’s RCORP includes the following cooperative agreements:
- RCORP-TA: supports RCORP grantees in their efforts to increase access to behavioral health services, as well as to SUD prevention, treatment, and recovery services, in rural communities
- RCORP-Evaluation: evaluates the impact of RCORP and develops evaluation tools and resources for use in rural communities and to inform future rural health initiatives
- RCORP-Rural Centers of Excellence on SUDs: supports the identification, translation, dissemination, and implementation of evidence-based programs and best practices related to the treatment for and prevention of SUD within rural communities. Their focus is on the current opioid crisis and on developing methods to address future SUD epidemics.
- Rural Behavioral Health Workforce Centers – Northern Border Region: supports communities by training health workers and community members to help people with behavioral health disorders,