VITAL STRATEGIES INC

Opioid overdose prevention program:vital strategies continued its work as part of the opioid overdose prevention program in 2024, helping to implement 28 legislative, regulatory, administrative action and protocol changes in four of our seven focus states, distributed more than 1.8m naloxone kits through state-run naloxone portals, launched nine state and national media campaigns and developed 12 toolkits and technical guidance products since inception. Specific 2024 achievements across our seven focus states are as follows: - kentucky: - naloxone access - helped kentucky launch their new naloxone website and ordering portal at findnaloxonenowky, including release of a new animated training video - anti-criminalization - kentucky c4-funded defensive lobbying project achieved changes to hb5 to somewhat mitigate harmful impact and is working with courts to establish monitoring plan to help convey impact of hb5. - michigan: - opioid settlements - michigan association of counties engaged with 61 of the 83 counties and completed 244 technical assistance requests over two years - community mobilization - held project overview and future planning convenings in harrisburg pa with 70+ attendees - new jersey: - community crisis response - vital projects in new jersey continue to achieve milestones in expansion and sustainability through award of state funding. This includes our grantees being approved for pilot funding for new community alternative response models and approved as harm reduction centers under new state law. - anti-criminalization - major legislation signed in new jersey to remove drug checking items from paraphernalia criminalization laws, and to authorize and provide funding for community-led crisis response pilot programs - new mexico: - opioid settlements - vital was invited to play a key role in creating settlement spending strategy for new mexico's most populous county and city. A robust community engagement plan, and thorough data landscaping, informed recommendations to be finalized in november - drug checking - state drug checking program in new mexico was launched and operating at three of four planned sites and already enabling public health alerts and responses - north carolina: - moud access - expert consultants engaged by vital strategies in north carolina are making important strides towards encouraging program adoption, helping to secure funding, and planning for data collection to help build up jails-based moud access in the state. Progress was made in six counties, including advancing plans for jail-based dosing in rowan county and finalizing contracts for peer support in harnett county. They also assisted in preparing funding proposals for moud programs in mecklenburg and caldwell counties. - drug checking - university of north carolina's opioid data lab continued to scale their work by developing a data dashboard for the north carolina department of health and human services to provide real time analysis of tested substances. Additionally, five datasets were created, and a chemical dictionary is in progress to aid substance identification. A 24-hour response time was established for community data requests, and a nationwide randomized drug messaging trial was conducted across seven harm reduction sites. Efforts to overhaul the data reporting pipeline include launching a team website with newsletters, user-friendly data access, and a prototype for program summaries set for early 2025. - pennsylvania: - drug checking - subgrantee pa groundhogs continued their community-based drug checking work and secured additional funding sources to continue operations - community mobilization - held project overview and future planning convenings in in detroit region with 80+ attendees across sectors - wisconsin: - drug checking - vital strategies and remedy alliance planning and technical assistance helped dane county prepare for the launch of a community drug checking program - community mobilization - vital strategies convened a three-day policy workshop in milwaukee, wisconsin from september 16-18, 2024 focused on strategic planning for harm reduction and overdose prevention in wisconsin and facilitated by the wisconsin institute for public policy and service. The primary objectives of the workshop were to identify a set of specific priority policy issues related to overdose prevention and harm reduction efforts, develop actionable next steps to advance reforms of policy priorities, and establish a mechanism for ongoing collaboration for stakeholders.additionally, vital worked across two or more states to complete the following activities in 2024: - community-based race equity grants, supporting engagement and services by bipoc-led organizations for local health initiatives, are now active in pennsylvania, kentucky, new jersey and are planned to be launched in north carolina - opioid settlements collaborated with johns hopkins team to launch the ospri tool for opioid settlement indicators, which we continue to update and improve - harm reduction services - launched opcinfo website with brown university; now includes recorded virtual tour of an overdose prevention center and library of photos for media - anti-criminalization - working with broken no more to elevate media engagement opportunities for parents who have lost a child to overdose and who want to become involved in advocacy against punitive policies, with press engagement and video production. - moud access - collaborated with american society of addiction medicine on legal explainer and state-by-state review of legal landscape relating to stimulant medication treatment