HHS Announces $1.8 Billion in State Funding for Combating Opioid Crisis

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today announced more than $1.8 billion in funding to states for combating the opioid crisis. These funds are earmarked for the expansion of access to treatment and to support near real-time data on drug overdoses.

This funding includes more than $900 million announced by the CDC for a 3-year cooperative agreement with states, territories, and localities to advance the understanding of the opioid overdose epidemic and to scale-up prevention and response activities.

As part of HHS’s strategy to combat the opioid crisis, the CDC is working to prevent opioid misuse, overdose, and death, and is disseminating resources, messages, and funding. This funding from CDC aims to help state and local governments track overdose data as closely to real-time as possible and support them in work to prevent overdoses and save lives.

Over the past decade, reporting of mortality data has improved substantially, mainly due to improvements in reporting by state vital records offices. CDC has worked diligently to provide financial and technical assistance to help improve the quality, timeliness, and specificity of surveillance data in states and communities across the nation, and these funds will continue to support this critical work. States may report nonfatal data as quickly as every two weeks and report fatal data every six months.

In addition to the CDC funding, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) awarded approximately $932 million to all states as part of its State Opioid Response grants. SAMHSA provides flexible funding to state governments to support prevention, treatment, and recovery services in the ways that meet the needs of their state.

According to HHS, efforts to expand treatment are succeeding with data suggesting that approximately 1.27 million of approximately 2 million Americans with opioid use disorder are receiving medication-assisted treatment.

From 2017 to 2018, provisional counts of drug overdose deaths dropped by 5%, and overdose deaths from opioids went down 2.8% during that time. The number of individuals reporting pain reliever misuse decreased from 2017 to 2018 by 11%, with fewer than 10 million Americans now reporting misuse, according to HHS.

Heroin-related opioid use disorder also decreased significantly among young adults.

Reference

Trump Administration Announces $1.8 Billion in Funding to States to Continue Combating Opioid Crisis [news release]. Washington, DC; September 4, 2019: HHS website. https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2019/09/04/trump-administration-announces-1-8-billion-funding-states-combating-opioid.html. Accessed September 4, 2019.