Overdose Measures Matter

Indicator Profile

Number of partners you work with to address and prevent overdoses and associated harms

Category: Partnerships

Audience: Convener

Data Type: Quantitative

Indicator Overview

Description:

Total number of partners you work with to address and prevent overdoses and associated harms. This may include partners represented in any workgroups, taskforces or coalitions focused on overdose prevention, including a Public Health and Safety Team (PHAST), Drug Free Communities Coalition (DFC) or Overdose Fatality Review Team (OFRT).

Rationale:

Coordinating efforts among diverse partners allow teams to fully leverage their collective knowledge, insights, resources, data and skills to optimize their capacity in preventing overdoses.1 This also helps ensure unique perspectives, approaches and knowledge are represented within each team.

Tracking the number of partners you work with to address and prevent overdoses, as well as the sectors each member represents, enables teams to identify missing organizations, sectors or perspectives. By regularly assessing the number and types of partners represented, teams are better able to identify gaps and engage new members.

Related Indicators:

For deeper insight into partnerships with people with lived and living substance use experience (PWLLE), consider tracking these indicators:

Examining these indicators can shed light on an organization’s culture, priorities and values in engaging with and supporting PWLLE. This information can provide valuable context about the types of partnerships an organization fosters and maintains.

Indicator Details

Definitions:

Partners include any organization, agency or other entity that collaborates with your organization to prevent overdose. Many jurisdictions may have a coalition or an existing team of partners dedicated to overdose prevention. These may be locally referred to as an overdose prevention taskforce, workgroup, collaborative, Public Health and Safety Team (PHAST), Drug Free Communities Coalition (DFC) or Overdose Fatality Review Team (OFRT).

Common across these examples is a focus on engaging diverse partners. Diverse partners bring different perspectives and information together. This allows jurisdictions to leverage their collective knowledge, data and skill sets, share insights and resources for effective intervention strategies unique to each field and work together to reduce stigma across partnering organizations.

Ways to Examine the Data:

  1. Type of sector each partner represents Sectors may include but are not limited to public health, public safety, hospitals, housing, mental health, education and veterans’ services.

Data Sources:

  • Team facilitator or team lead of the overdose prevention team or the person leading partnership efforts
  • Members of the overdose prevention team
  • Members of partnering organizations
  • Annual report or other publicly available documents
  • Community leadership

Data Collection Methods:

  • Interview with team facilitator, team lead or person leading partnership efforts
  • Survey among team members/partnering organizations
  • Document review

Application and Considerations

Suggested Use:

  • To track the number of partners with whom community conveners are actively working
  • To identify gaps in partnerships and quickly assess whether additional partners or sectors should be engaged
  • To identify sectors without representation
  • To identify focus areas not currently addressed (e.g., youth prevention, incarcerated substance users, fatality review)

Health Access Considerations:

You may want to consider:

  • Are there any sectors that are not represented? Has your organization considered how important it is to engage these sectors and how to do so?
  • Which of these partners represents PWLLE? Which of these partners represent populations with higher rates of overdose? Which of these partners represent people who have been historically underserved or disproportionately impacted by overdose?
  • Has your organization considered how to include PWLLE in its planning and decision-making efforts?
  • How closely do you work with each partner?
  • Are some partners more actively involved than others? How might you leverage these partnerships? Are there opportunities to work more closely with other partners?

  • What is the quality of these partnerships? How do you recognize a quality partnership?

  • How do each of these partners engage with PWLLE? Is their approach supportive and free of stigma?

Evaluation Considerations:

Limitations:

  • Does not track descriptive information about partnerships
  • Does not track outcomes or impact of these partnerships
  • Does not track partnership quality

Policy Considerations and Resources:

Additional Resources

Examples:

References:

  1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2022). Public Health and Safety Team Toolkit.
    https://phast.org/