DHHR to Receive $1.3 Million Grant for Prescription Drug Overdose Prevention

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., have announced a $1.3 million Prescription Drug Overdose Prevention Grant for the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR).

The aim of the program is to support states as they enact and evaluate prevention strategies to end prescription drug abuse and overdoses, according to a release.

Allison Adler, DHHR Director of Communications, said the Bureau for Public Health's goal is to use three strategies to target providers' high-risk prescribing and patient behaviors that drive overdose deaths.

Those three strategies include enhancing and maximizing the state Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP), known in West Virginia as the Controlled Substances Monitoring Program; implementing community and insurer/health system interventions; and evaluating existing policies designed to reduce prescription drug overdose morbidity and mortality.

When making the announcement, Manchin said, "Prescription drug abuse is devastating communities all over our state and nation, and it is unacceptable for us to just turn a blind eye to it. As West Virginians, we have a responsibility — especially to our children — to curb prescription drug abuse, and I applaud those on the front lines who are working to end the epidemic we are facing."

He said the funding will help to prevent prescription drug overdoses by maximizing efforts to expand prescription drug monitoring programs, providing technical assistance to communities that are most likely to experience overdoses and evaluating the existing policies to better understand what is working to prevent overdoses.

Capito, who helped secure this funding as a member of the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee, said as the number of overdose deaths continue skyrocketing in West Virginia, "(W)e must continue doing everything possible to prevent prescriptions from ending up in the wrong hands."

"I have introduced several pieces of legislation aimed at combating this issue, and I am pleased that this funding, which I voted to appropriate in the spending bill that passed the Senate last December, will strengthen our efforts to create a drug-free West Virginia.”

The $1,331,985 grant was awarded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.