CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — The Hamilton County Well being Division is attributing a latest lower in drug overdoses to their prevention program.
The division says there was a 10-percent drop over the past two years in Fentanyl associated deaths.
Nevertheless, there’s one other drug that’s inflicting deaths to development upward.
“It is a database designed for a speedy response by public well being and overdose prevention businesses.”
The OD MAP database pulls knowledge in actual time from Hamilton County EMS to have the ability to establish hotspots the place overdoses sometimes happen in our space.
“We’re monitoring the info that helps us to know the place we have to intervene, whether or not that be distributing Naloxone or simply selling the necessity for substance use remedy.”
Though, Fetanyl overdose deaths since 2022 have gone down 10 p.c, the lethal use of one other drug goes up: methamphetamine.
The darkish blue line on this graph exhibits a rise within the proportion of deaths associated to meth overdoses from 2023 to 2024.
“We primarily see Fentanyl combined with methamphetamine. So our large contributor to our deaths and to our non-fatal overdoses continues to be methamphetamine.”
After we requested why meth is such an issue in Hamilton County…
“Finally these deaths are going to replicate which medicine are most cost-effective and best to acquire.”
Within the Well being Division’s 2024 Neighborhood Well being Evaluation, researchers discovered that the demographic of meth customers is altering.
Whereas nearly all of customers was center aged and white, the division says there is a rise enhance in black and youthful customers.
“We’ll assist join them to the substance use remedy that they want for his or her for no matter in the event that they must be detox, or in the event that they want residential, relying on what sort of standards they want, we are able to join them with these sources.”
For extra info on Hamilton County’s battle towards drug overdoses, go here.
The Tennessee REDLINE is the 24/7/365 useful resource for substance abuse. Anybody can name or textual content 800-889-9789 for confidential referrals.
