Demeter Natalie

California continues to face a serious public health crisis with the opioid epidemic having substantial health and economic impacts. The epidemic is dynamic and rapidly changing, involving both prescription opioids influenced by prescribing and dispensing patterns as well as illicit opioids influenced by the availability of heroin and recently, the increased availability of fentanyl. The complexity of the issue necessitates data-informed actions through multi-sector, strategic collaboration at both the state and local levels to address the problem comprehensively. With nearly 2,000 opioid overdose deaths per year and wide variation of overdose rates across counties and demographic groups, there is a need for integrated, timely, actionable data for use by state policy makers, local opioid safety coalitions, media, community stakeholders, and the public to monitor and combat this dynamic epidemic at the state and local level. Using fatality data from the California Opioid Overdose Surveillance Dashboard1, the opioid overdose epidemic is described along with the differential geographic and demographic impacts.

Objective: Demonstrate the use of timely, actionable data from a data visualization tool, the California Opioid Overdose Surveillance Dashboard, which integrates statewide, geographic- and demographic-specific data, by describing the changes in opioid overdose deaths in California.

The opioid epidemic is a multifaceted public health issue that requires a coordinated and dynamic response to address the ongoing changes in the trends of opioid overdoses. Access to timely and accurate data allows more targeted and effective programs and policies to prevent and reduce fatal and nonfatal drug overdoses in California. As a part of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Enhanced State Opioid Overdose Surveillance grant, the goals of this surveillance are to more rapidly identify changes in trends of nonfatal drug overdose, opioid overdose, and heroin overdose emergency department visits; identify demographic groups or areas within California that are experiencing these changes; and to provide these data and trends to state and local partners addressing the opioid crisis throughout California. Emergency department (ED) visit data are analyzed on an ongoing quarterly basis to monitor the proportion of all ED visits that are attributed to nonfatal drug, opioid, and heroin overdoses as a portion of the statewide opioid overdose surveillance.

Objective: To track and monitor nonfatal emergency department opioid overdoses in California for use in the statewide response in the opioid epidemic.