MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The West Virginia First Foundation (WVFF) is encouraged by recent data released showing a continued decrease in overdose deaths statewide. Now, they want to better understand the data and work to find the most effective treatments for those suffering from substance abuse disorder.
On WAJR’s “Talk of the Town,” Executive Director Jonathan Board said one effort is the launch of a committee that will look for the best methods, research, and innovations in substance abuse treatment.
The New Horizons Committee will meet as needed to explore emerging strategies and is led by Alys Smith and includes foundation members Matthew Harvey, Dr. Matthew Christiansen, Jon Dower and Dr. Steven Corder.
“We’re launching some committee work through a New Horizons Committee with a focus that’s going to look to innovation, research, and emerging strategies to fight substance abuse disorder,” Board said.
Broadly, he believes the work of Quick Response Teams, the availability of NARCAN, and the work of care providers have been key in the drop of overdose deaths. He said we now need to understand if those efforts are decreasing the numbers of people who start using.
“We want to bolster those efforts, and we want to make sure we reach all of our communities,” Board said. “That we see those numbers come down across the board and that it starts to have a downstream effect not only in recovery but in prevention as well.”
He said the numbers are a great sign, but there is evidence that the decreases are not consistent, leading them to have a tempered response. Digging deeper into the numbers, he hopes will lead to more insights on how to reach the sectors of our population suffering substance abuse that are falling through the cracks.
“In certain communities you’ll actually see that hasn’t trended the same, and that’s a concern to me—this isn’t across the board,” Board said. “Additionally, sometimes we’ll see pockets where the overdose rates have gone down, but addiction rates have plateaued or gone up.”
As those insights are developed, Board’s mission does not change or slow down.
“We need to pivot with this data,” Board said. “Let the data drive our decisions and become very focused on that, but not drop the ball because the best area is showing great numbers.”
While the foundation will continue their important mission of supporting programs across the state by awarding grants from opioid settlement money, a secondary mission of research will continue. The board hopes the research improves their understanding of the numbers, or what is working, so those efforts can be supported, expanded, and tracked with the possibility of deploying them to other areas of the state.
“We’ll continue to grant, but we want to make sure we’re doing everything we can to continue this downward trend of overdose deaths here in West Virginia,” Board said.