Allegheny County Receiving Funding To Address Opioid Epidemic
ALLEGHENY COUNTY (KDKA) -- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has awarded Allegheny County $5.2 million in funding to address the opioid epidemic.
On Wednesday, Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald announced the county was given Overdose Data to Action funding from the CDC.
The funding, which the county will receive through Aug. 31, 2022, and work will be administered by the county's health department.
"Our departments have moved quickly and worked proactively to address the issue of opioids on multiple fronts, and have seen progress in that work," Fitzgerald said in a release. "This CDC grant funding will allow ACHD to build on those successes and to do what we do best – work together to find solutions."
The goal of the program is to use timely data to inform overdose prevention activities, the release said.
"We are excited to receive this funding from the CDC as it will allow us to deploy a variety of innovative surveillance and prevention strategies that will help the Department and partners prevent opioid-related harms and overdose to save lives," said ACHD's Deputy Director of Public Policy and Community Relations Otis Pitts in a release. "We will be partnering with the PA Department of Health, health systems, insurers, community providers, and public safety to ensure that a comprehensive set of evidence-based practices reach residents throughout Allegheny County."
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