The Public Health and Safety Team (PHAST) Toolkit was developed to help local jurisdictions reduce overdose deaths by increasing collaboration and coordination among all sectors, with a focus on public health and public safety agencies.
Get StartedProvisional CDC data indicate that overdose deaths in the U.S. increased by 30% in 2020.1 Addressing this crisis requires strong and collaborative multi-sector partnerships within local communities. Bridging gaps between public health and public safety can be particularly difficult, given their different roles, duties, and training. The PHAST Toolkit provides jurisdictions with a step-by-step process and action steps to examine case-level and aggregate data and identify key overdose prevention strategies and ways to implement them.
The PHAST framework is modeled after New York City's RxStat initiative to reduce deaths associated with prescription opioids by leveraging cross-sector near real-time data to inform strategy. PHAST engages multi-sector partners to achieve three primary goals:
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Shared understanding of the local overdose crisis
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Optimized jurisdictional capacity and
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Shared accountability for reducing overdose deaths.
The "SOS" goals represent the specific objectives of a PHAST's data sharing and collaboration activities.
The PHAST Toolkit consists of four modules with guidance on how to build or strengthen collaboratives, share and use data, move from data to action, and measure progress along the way.
Download the Toolkit
