ArticleDrug and alcohol dependence2025
HEALing Communities Study: Data measures for supporting a community-based intervention to reduce opioid overdose deaths.
Article in Drug and alcohol dependence, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Customizing and fine-tuning opioid overdose machine learning models for community-specific dashboards.Journal of big data · 2026Article
- Buprenorphine utilization following removal of prior authorization requirements in the Kentucky Medicaid population.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2026Article
- Drug overdose deaths in Kentucky, 2019-2024: are we back to Pre-COVID-19 levels?Injury epidemiology · 2025Article
- Operationalizing a research-oriented learning healthcare system across covered entities: cross-institutional strategies and innovations.npj health systems · 2025Article
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17 authors.
Funding
Abstract
introductionThe HEALing Communities Study (HCS) tested a community-based intervention in 67 communities across Kentucky, Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio to reduce opioid overdose deaths. This paper introduces the HCS measures for monitoring the intervention uptake, reports crude rates for benchmarking, and highlights the importance of interpreting jurisdictional trends in the context of state policies.
methodsWe present technical specifications for the HCS measures and the common data model. Crude rates for the evaluation period (July 2021- June 2022) are reported by state and study arm (intervention/Wave 1 or wait-listed/Wave 2 communities), along with longitudinal trends from 2017 to 2023. Year 2023 serves as a post-intervention period for Wave 1 communities and an intervention year for Wave 2 communities.
resultsAfter unprecedented increases in 2020-2021, the HCS crude opioid overdose death rates declined in 2023, but remained higher than the 2019 pre-pandemic rates. Opioid overdose death rates exceeded 100/100,000 adults among Non-Hispanic Black individuals in several states. In response to the rapid increase in opioid overdose deaths in Kentucky, the HCS team expanded the naloxone distribution in Kentucky intervention communities, reaching a 10-fold increase in Quarter 3 of 2021 (1498.2 units/100,000 residents). The methadone medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) treatment rate for Medicaid enrollees with opioid use disorder during the evaluation period was highest in Massachusetts intervention communities (274/1000), while the buprenorphine MOUD treatment rate was highest in Kentucky (441/1000).
conclusionsThe HCS measures support comprehensive planning and evaluation of population-level opioid overdose prevention interventions and policies.
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