New Mexico Receives Federal Funding to Combat Prescription Drug Overdoses

The New Mexico Department of Health (DOH) announced today that it has received an $850,000 per year grant for the next four years to enhance prescription drug overdose prevention.

New Mexico is one of 16 states that successfully competed for the four-year grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  The grant, called Prescription Drug Overdose: Prevention for States is a new program to help states address the ongoing prescription drug overdose epidemic.

“This funding allows the New Mexico Department of Health to develop new partnerships with the Board of Pharmacy and the Workers Compensation Administration.  It will increase our capacity to reach communities with a high overdose burden,” said Department of Health Cabinet Secretary Retta Ward, MPH.  “We were pleased to have successfully competed for this funding.”

The funding to the Department of Health will help New Mexico to advance prevention on multiple fronts, including:

• Enhancing prescription drug monitoring programs.
• Putting prevention into action in high incident communities, such as educating providers and patients about the risk of prescription drug overdose.
• Working with health systems, insurers, and providers to help them make informed decisions related to prescribing pain medication.
• Responding to new and emerging drug overdose issues through innovative projects, such as developing new surveillance systems or communications campaigns.
• Developing a better understanding and response to the increase in heroin overdose deaths and to investigate the connection between prescription opioid abuse and heroin use.

In 2014, 536 New Mexico residents died of an overdose, and 265 of those deaths were the result of prescription opioids.

The DOH’s aim is to prevent drug overdose at the individual, community and state level by working with affected people and their families and friends, their health care providers, law enforcement agencies, and other stakeholders. As part of the funding, DOH will collaborate with the Human Services Department to increase public awareness of potential harm from prescription opioid medications.

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Nuevo México Recibe Fondos Federales Para Luchar Contra las Sobredosis de Medicamentos Recetados