Trainings and Resources

CDC created this communication toolkit to help public health professionals, health departments, community organizations, and healthcare systems and providers reach populations who may need COVID-19 prevention messaging in their native languages.

Since 1999, an estimated 841,000 people in the U.S. have died from a drug overdose. Beginning in March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic significantly exacerbated the overdose crisis resulting in a 30% increase in 2020 compared to 2019. The majority of overdose deaths in the U.S. involve opioids, including nearly 71% of all overdose deaths in 2019.3 Despite high rates of overdose across the nation, overdose and overdose death are preventable. However, people at risk of overdose often face significant challenges accessing treatment and navigating systems of care. Local and state health departments are well-suited to lead and support efforts to prevent and respond to overdose and to link people to evidence-based treatment and services. Peer support services (PSS) are a valuable component of a growing number of overdose response and linkage to care initiatives that can be implemented and supported by local and state health departments.

The National Council for Mental Wellbeing developed this toolkit with support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The project team would like to thank the key informants who devoted their time, expertise and resources to inform this report at a challenging time during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In spring 2021, pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors notified syringe services programs (SSPs) and partners that there would be significant interruptions in the supply of injectable/intramuscular (IM) naloxone. Currently, production and distribution delays are expected to last until fall 2021. This will specifically affect SSPs because IM naloxone is the most affordable formulation, and therefore is most commonly utilized by programs that distribute large volumes of naloxone to reduce fatal overdose rates. 

The United States is in the midst of an unprecedented opioid epidemic. In order to implement effective population-level response strategies to this epidemic, health departments and community-based organizations must understand both the size and characteristics of the local population affected. Local data regarding the opioid epidemic are sparse and don’t fully characterize the population of those most affected, such as people who inject drugs (PWID). Without these data, it is difficult to know which epidemic response strategies are meeting the most pressing community needs and whether services are delivered at the appropriate scale. For these reasons, we developed this toolkit for population size estimation with specific emphasis on applying population estimation methods among PWID in rural communities.

On February 2, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) issued an amendment to the emergency Declaration made last March in response to COVID-19. The amendment allows additional categories of health care professionals – including physicians, registered nurses, and practical nurses with recently expired licenses – to administer COVID-19 vaccinations.

The purpose of this Health Alert Network (HAN) Advisory is to alert public health departments, healthcare professionals, first responders, harm reduction organizations, laboratories, and medical examiners and coroners to— substantial increases in drug overdose deaths across the United States, primarily driven by rapid increases in overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids excluding methadone (hereafter referred to as synthetic opioids), likely illicitly manufactured fentanyl.

The White House released a plan for the pandemic that includes a campaign for vaccination, setting standards for controlling the spread of the virus, and enacting the Defense Production Act to extend emergency relief.

The FDA recommends health care professionals discuss naloxone with all patients when prescribing opioid pain relievers or medicines to treat opioid use disorder.

This final rule makes changes to the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) regulations governing the Confidentiality of Substance Use Disorder Patient Records. These changes were prompted by the need to continue aligning the regulations with advances in the U.S. health care delivery system, while retaining important privacy protections for individuals seeking treatment for substance use disorders (SUDs).