How ready is your county to help with addiction recovery?

Screenshot of Recovery Ecosystem Index Map; for interactive verson, click here.

"A new national index from the Center for Rural Health Research at East Tennessee State University called the Recovery Ecosystem Index Mapping Tool drills down to the county level to assess drug recovery systems across the country," Liz Carey reports for the Daily Yonder.

Carey's object example is Vine Grove, Kentucky, which put out a vending machine for Narcan, which reverses the effects of an overdose. "They knew people would use it," she writes; "They just didn’t anticipate it being empty three days later." In 27 days, the town of 7,000 has used 169 boxes of Narcan, Police Chief Keith Mattingly told Carey.

Index information for Hardin County, Kentucky, site of Vine Grove; click to enlarge.

The mapping tool, created in association with the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago and the Fletcher Group, a consultancy, shows the recovery resources available in every county. The index then rates each county by comparing resources and demographic information against the county’s overdose mortality rates.

“The index is intended to serve local stakeholders to help them better understand the availability of recovery-related resources in their county and neighboring counties,” Andrew Howard of the Fletcher Group told Carey.

“We are hoping that people at the community level will use this tool to first determine the recovery ecosystem score for their community, but then to dig into the data to really understand where they can invest to create a better support system for their people,” Michael Meit, co-director of the Center for Rural Health Research, told Carey. “Rural areas, I think, have more structural challenges, but (building a recovery ecosystem) is still eminently achievable in rural areas.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drug overdose rates rose across the country in 2021, but in five states – California, Connecticut, North Carolina, Vermont and Virginia – drug overdose rates in rural counties were higher than in urban counties. Data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics estimates that 107,622 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2021.