Combating Overdose Through Community-level Intervention -- Past Awards
The University of Baltimore's Center for Drug Policy and Prevention (CDPP) oversees the Combating Opioid Overdose through Community-Level Intervention (COCLI) grant program. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 107,000 people died from a drug overdose in the United States in 2021, a 15 percent increase from 2020. Government entities at the federal, state, and local level have initiated projects to respond to this unprecedented epidemic.
COCLI is a program funded through a partnership between the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and the CDC, which first began in 2017. CDPP has successfully been awarded this grant since 2017, funding projects from public nonprofit institutions to develop and implement community-based efforts designed to fight the overdose epidemic and support strong partnerships between law enforcement and public health agencies. A total of $21 million has been awarded to more than 85 projects in the seven years that CDPP has managed these activities:
2017 – 13 grantees for a total of $2 million
2018 – 12 grantees for a total of $3.5 million
2019 – 14 grantees for a total of $4.5 million
2020 – 8 grantees for a total of $2 million
2021 – 14 grantees for a total of $3 million
2022 – 14 grantees for a total of $3 million
For 2023, 14 innovative programs across 12 states received grants up to $270,000 through CDPP to undertake research activities and support and promote law enforcement and public health partnerships aimed at reducing drug overdoses. Of the proposals submitted and reviewed by the CDPP Board, the following projects were awarded:
STATE | PROJECT | AWARD AMOUNT | DESCRIPTION |
Alaska | Alaska Fentanyl Response Project | $90,000 |
The mission of the Alaska Fentanyl Response Project is to raise awareness to the dangers that synthetic opioids such as fentanyl poses to Alaska communities, as well as to distribute lifesaving naloxone kits and overdose response training to help overdose patients. The project provides naloxone kits and training to historically underserved Alaska Native communities which have been heavily impacted by synthetic opioid related overdose deaths. |
Arizona | Asylum Advocates | $50,000 |
The Asylum Opioid Resilience Project is an integrated effort that includes youth prevention, adult recovery support, and mobile outreach. The coalition aims to expand and increase: awareness and education trainings; distribution of naloxone, hygiene kits, and bilingual polysubstance awareness materials; resource navigation; mobile outreach through a certified peer support and ACEs specialist licensed barber via a barbershop bus; and the activities of Asylum Advocates’ LGBTQIAP2S+ focused youth prevention coalition, Desert Spectrum. |
Arizona | WestCare Arizona | $270,000 |
WestCare Arizona I, Inc., (WCAZ) will implement the WestCare Quick Response Team (WC QRT) by utilizing culturally informed strategies and evidence-based interventions. WC QRT will provide a spectrum of strategies that includes providing immediate mobile response overdose medication; screening and assessing clients for mental health crisis; referring clients for treatment services; and providing recovery support services, outreach, and peer support. |
Connecticut | Yale University | $135,000 |
Project CODS uses an FTIR machine to test drug samples from people who use drugs in New Haven, followed by dissemination of findings via a crowdsourcing platform. CODS will provide preliminary FTIR, followed by confirmatory GC-MS results regarding potentially dangerous adulterants to the drug supply. All crowdsourced information regarding drug supply will be accompanied by a public health message in plain language, accessible for all community members, and translated in both English and Spanish. |
Florida | Community Coalition Alliance, Inc. | $49,930 |
Community Coalition Alliance, Inc., in collaboration with Hamilton’s local coalition, will work to embark on a comprehensive community assessment process to identify areas across prevention, treatment, and recovery. Through Hamilton’s Engagement and Rally of Togetherness (HEART), this initiative will guide collaborative strategic planning to move data to action by better understanding the local context to support/leverage efforts to ensure a comprehensive and inclusive response. |
Florida | City of Gainesville-Gainesville Fire Rescue | $36,536 |
Gainesville Fire Rescue will gather and synthesize various data sets to allow for targeted programming to address the overdose-related needs that all stakeholders are seeing through their work. This planning process will engage neighbors and community partners within Gainesville city limits. |
Massachusetts | Brandeis Univesity | $267,511 |
Responding to Xylazine (R2X): A Public Health-Public Safety Initiative will investigate appropriate police and community responses to xylazine in the drug supply through in-depth focus groups, offer critical, timely training to police and other community members nationwide, and conduct workshops, training, and support to police and partners who will co-develop appropriate local police responses. |
Nevada | PACT Coalition for Drug Free Communities | $50,000 |
PACT Coalition and the Nevada Statewide Coalition Partnership (NSCP), which represents all 17 counties in Nevada, will plan, coordinate, and implement a statewide Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) training to increase community awareness and understanding of ACEs and its root causes and effects in Nevada. The training will focus on looking at Nevada youth ACEs data and determining both causes and community‐based solutions to reduce those ACEs and will incorporate education on Protective and Compensatory Experiences (PACES) for communities to increase resilience and protective factors for youth. |
New York | Partnership to End Addiction | $269,999 |
The Partnership to End Addiction proposes to collaborate with the NYS Office of Addiction Supports and Services to implement the Partnership Overdose Prevention Project. Key components are an overdose prevention automated texting program, available nationally; NY-specific overdose prevention messages; and customized Spike notifications for 4-6 New York counties. They will work with these counties to disseminate notifications about increases and patterns in overdoses within their communities. |
North Carolina | National Prevention Science Coalition to Improve Lives | $270,000 |
Children of caregivers with opioid use disorder (OUD) are at very high risk for substance abuse due to exposure to severely adverse conditions. This project proposes an innovative approach to disrupt these pathways by providing a well-established family intervention—Triple P—in a novel, highly accessible and engaging platform. Triple P will be transformed into a smartphone game application to increase its acceptability, relevance and accessibility for even the most difficult-to-reach caregivers. |
Oregon | Oregon State University | $134,747 |
Through collaboration with the Oregon-Idaho HIDTA Overdose Response Strategy team, this project proposes to adapt the evidence-based intervention, Community conversations about Mental Health, for use regarding a shared overdose response between public health and public safety partners through community conversations to identify strengths, gaps, priority areas, and action plans. |
Pennsylvania | Philadelphia Fire Department | $269,995 |
The overdose response unit, AR-2/AR-2A, pairs EMS providers with social service case managers responding to overdoses in Kensington. AR-2 uses a marked Fire Department SUV to respond to overdoses and then supplements the responses with AR- 2A--a retrofitted recreational vehicle that functions as a mobile office and waiting room for the overdose survivors who have asked to be placed in treatment. |
Texas | Recovery Resource Council | $270,000 |
The North Texas Overdose Response Program is a collaborative effort between multiple community partners and sectors, with emphasis on public health and public safety. The North Texas Overdose Response Program includes several specialized initiatives to address the unmet needs of individuals and families suffering as a result of substance use disorder and overdose. These programs include overdose response teams, overdose fatality review committees, and community outreach/education services. |
Virginia | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $269,695 |
The C2C program is a multi-stakeholder intervention using referral, crisis response resources, case management capacities, and continuous outreach. The C2C program applies a Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) framework integrated into the proposed connection, referral, case management and treatment strategies, with a focus on starting the path to long-term recovery, through wrap-around services, while supporting self-sufficiency and resiliency. |