ACTION PLAN

St. Louis County’s original action plan was released in 2018 and laid out priorities specific to addressing the opioid epidemic for the years 2018 through 2020 and forward. While opioids and their impacts are still a top priority, this iteration of the action plan is updated to reflect the situation in 2022 and seeks to not only build upon the framework of the previous plan but to address the broader aspects of the substance use epidemic. Like the previous plan, this plan lays out coordinated strategies to address substance use and overdose.

The new plan builds upon the prior iteration, but also maintains many cornerstone similarities. This newly revised plan aims to:

• Raise awareness about substance use, overdoses, and how our community is affected by them.

• Prevent opioid use disorder and substance use disorder.

• Increase the availability of naloxone (Narcan®) to rescue people during an overdose.

• Increase the number of people connected to treatment with a focus on high-risk populations.

• Enable people in recovery to access recovery services and supports that increase quality of life.

The action plan lays out initiatives in five priority areas which naturally have some overlap:

• Education and prevention

• Harm reduction and rescue

• Treatment

• Recovery

• Public health surveillance

The plan is designed to change based on the evolution of the epidemic itself, assessments of the effectiveness of different interventions, and future funding opportunities. Throughout the plan, initiatives will be denoted with the following symbols: h Actions to be implemented by the Saint Louis County Department of Public Health with current resources.

„ Actions to be implemented by partners with current resources.

® Opportunities dependent on legislation, additional funding, capacity, or new commitments.