The federal government announced it has awarded $79.1 million in overdose prevention grants.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), awarded the bulk of the grant money — $44.8 million — to opioid-use disorder (OUD) treatment.
The largest singular portion of the funding — $32.7 million — will support medication-assisted treatment (MAT) grantees to expand and enhance access to treatment. MAT is considered by some the gold standard for treating OUD. The remainder of the awards went to first responder training and various awareness campaigns and prevention campaigns.
An estimated 109,200 people died from overdoses in the 12-month period ending in March. Seventy-five percent include opioids, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Everyone in this country deserves access to effective overdose prevention, treatment and recovery programs,” Miriam Delphin-Rittmon, HHS Assistant secretary for mental health and substance use and the leader of SAMHSA, said in a news release. “SAMHSA is committed to advancing innovative and comprehensive approaches that prevent overdose, expand quality treatment and sustain recovery.”
The grant awards were for the federal fiscal year 2022 which ends at the end of the month. For both this federal fiscal year and the soon-approaching federal fiscal year 2023, Congress and the White House have made major allocations for public behavioral health efforts.
In June, the Biden administration signed the bipartisan Safer Communities Act into law and, with it, allocated over $2 billion in mental health initiatives mainly focused on youth mental health and school-based health care. In July, the administration also announced it appropriated $300 million in federal funding for youth mental health initiatives.
The second and third largest dollar-amount grants of the seven initiatives SAMHSA announced went to overdose training for first responders ($14.5 million) and addiction treatment and recovery services for pregnant women and new mothers ($12.1 million), respectively.
“To address overdose prevention, HHS is working to expand access across the full continuum – prevention, harm reduction, treatment and recovery supports – in an effort to help save lives,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in the release.
In April, the Biden administration announced a new drug control strategy. It emphasizes harm reduction and expanding access to care. The strategy also called on agencies to explore tech tools such as digital therapeutics to increase the impact of present health care resources.
Companies featured in this article:
