PHOENIX, AZ — When Nicole Witt became the first Office of Public Health Advisor for the City of Phoenix in September 2022, one of her earliest priorities was to combat the opioid crisis.
“One of our first presentations to [Phoenix City] council, actually, was about our opioid settlement dollars and some of our recommendations for how to move forward,” Witt said. “We did recommend the dashboard and have been working on it for about a year.”
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The Phoenix Substance Abuse and Overdose Dashboard (PSUOD) officially launched on Wednesday, providing a deeper look at data on suspected and fatal overdoses in Phoenix.
PSUOD provides demographic data on suspected opioid overdoses including a person’s age, sex, housing status, overdose location (residential, business, transportation, and roadways), as well as suspected opioid overdoses by city council district.
“Right now, we started with looking at overdoses specifically,” Witt said. “And we know obviously, that's the most important data and information that we look to.”
Data provided to the dashboard comes from the Phoenix Fire and Police departments, according to a press release from the City of Phoenix Office of Public Health.
When the department responds to a call for an overdose and determines a person’s “symptomology” is consistent with a suspected opioid overdose, emergency responders administer the life-saving drug, Naloxone, Witt said.
If the person “responds positively” to the Naloxone, “we determine that’s a suspected overdose,” Witt said.
PSUOD also includes data on fatal overdoses in Phoenix, including drug types. The data shows overdose deaths attributed to alcohol, differing types of opioids, cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, and benzodiazepines.
“This information for Phoenix really hasn't… has not been accessible to the public before,” Witt said.
By providing specific information like a person’s age or the zip code where suspected overdoses occurred, the city and its community partners can better plan and allocate resources, according to Witt.
“Those are things that individuals in a community like our youth prevention coalitions or our community-based organizations or research partners, they're looking for that information to apply for grants so that they can get dollars to support really important work that they're doing related to overdose prevention,” Witt said.
The dashboard also provides information on the city’s Naloxone program including the number of Naloxone kits distributed in the community, and whether a person who experienced a suspected overdose was administered Naloxone before first responders' arrival.
Wednesday’s PSUOD launch was phase one of what Witt hopes will become a larger repository for additional data. But making the dashboard public is already a step Witt said she is “proud of.”
“This is the first time really the individuals who are working in overdose or community-based organizations and other partners have access to this information and a really easy way for them to inform their own planning,” Witt said. “Neighborhood coalitions and overdose coalitions will now have access to the information to inform their own planning."
