Community-Based Opioid Overdose Prevention Programs Providing Naloxone —United States, 2010

Drug overdose death rates have increased steadily in the US since 1979. In 2008, a total of 36,450 drug overdose deaths were reported, with prescription opioid analgesics, cocaine, and heroin the drugs most commonly involved. Since the mid-1990s, community-based programs have offered opioid overdose prevention services to persons who use drugs, their families and friends, and service providers. Since 1996, an increasing number of these programs have provided the opioid antagonist naloxone hydrochloride, the treatment of choice to reverse the potentially fatal respiratory depression caused by overdose of heroin and other opioids. In Oct 2010, the Harm Reduction Coalition, a national advocacy and capacity-building organization, surveyed 50 programs known to distribute naloxone in the US, to collect data on local program locations, naloxone distribution, and overdose reversals. Here, Wheeler et al summarize the findings for the 48 programs that completed the survey and the 188 local programs represented by the responses. Moreover, a CDC editorial note is included.