Moderator: Puja Seth, PhD, Lead, Overdose Epidemiology and Surveillance Team, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

CE Certified By: AMA,AAFP,ACPE,ANCC,APA,GA Bar,GA POST

Current surveillance systems have delays in data availability exceeding a year, highlighting the need for timely and comprehensive nonfatal and fatal overdose surveillance. This session will describe goals, components and preliminary findings of the Enhanced State Opioid Overdose Surveillance Program (ESOOS), funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Through ESOOS, CDC is able to report morbidity data on opioid overdoses by states on a quarterly basis and mortality data bi-annually by specific drug(s) because of enhanced toxicology. The increased timeliness of these data will inform the strategic planning around CDC-funded prevention efforts, facilitate a more rapid, targeted response effort at the local level, and disseminate data to key stakeholders and policymakers.

The goals of ESOOS are as follows: 1) increase the timeliness of reporting of nonfatal opioid overdoses and help detect sharp increases or decreases; 2) increase the timeliness of reporting of fatal opioid overdoses and associated risk factors; and 3) disseminate surveillance findings to key stakeholders working to prevent or respond to the opioid overdose epidemic.

UPON COMPLETION OF THIS COURSE, PARTICIPANTS WILL BE ABLE TO:
- Describe the CDC’s new opioid overdose surveillance program.
- Discuss how rapidly available data can be used to inform overdose response and prevention efforts.
- Overview emergency department and emergency medical services data for use in tracking opioid overdose trends.
- Describe the development of case definitions for opioid and heroin overdose in emergency department and emergency medical services data.
- Overview data available for fatal opioid overdoses and associated risk factors and its use in informing prevention and response recommendations.