UMass Memorial, Medical School holding overdose prevention symposium
Photo | Grant Welker
UMass Medical School, left, and UMass Memorial Medical Center's University Campus
A UMass Medical School and UMass Memorial Medical Center initiative for supporting drug overdose and prevention research is holding a symposium with dozens of area agencies Thursday.
The school's Overdose Prevention Fund was created by physicians and medical toxicologists in 2016 to support research, education and community intervention to fight drug overdoses. The fund's inaugural symposium, covering substance use prevention, treatment, and recovery, will take place Thursday from 5 to 9 p.m. at St. George Orthodox Cathedral at 30 Anna St. in Worcester.
More than 40 scheduled health and social service agency participants include AdCare, AIDS Project Worcester, Community Healthlink's Motivating Youth Recovery program, LUK, Family Health Center of Worcester, YOU Inc., and others.
The creation of the Overdose Prevention Fund came as opioid-related overdoses peaked in Massachusetts at more than 2,000 deaths. Though that number has come down slightly since then, that hasn't been the case in Worcester. In 2018, 97 deaths in the city were attributed to opioids, a jump from 80 the year before.
The fund is supporting in-person training for naloxone, which reverses an overdose, and helps provide telemedicine-based interventions to reach patients who don't have access to addiction medicine providers in their emergency department. It has also created new collaborations between researchers and clinicians to advance overdose care.
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