Amid intensifying statewide concern about a surge in overdoses and deaths, five area municipal coalitions are preparing to take fresh aim at the problem of opiate addiction.
The coalitions, based in Gloucester, Lowell, Lynn, Medford, and Revere, are plotting such strategies as training opiate users and their families on how to use a drug that counters the effects of overdoses, and spurring health-care providers to better integrate treatment of opiate addiction into their practices.
“We want to enhance the ability within each municipality to address these issues and the ability of everyone involved to collaborate,” said Cate Blackford, who is Revere’s manager of healthy community initiatives and coordinator of a regional coalition formed by the city with Chelsea, Saugus, and Winthrop.
Thirteen coalitions were formed across Massachusetts last summer, using multiyear state grants aimed at spurring cooperation among communities to combat the abuse of opiates, including heroin and prescription narcotics.
Among area communities, in addition to the Revere-based group, Gloucester is teaming with Beverly and Danvers; Lowell is collaborating with Billerica, Chelmsford, Dracut, Tewksbury, Westford, and Wilmington; Lynn is working with Peabody and Salem; and Medford is partnering with Malden, Melrose, Reading, Stoneham, and Wakefield.
After months of planning, the regional coalitions have until next Wednesday to submit to the state Department of Public Health their proposed strategies for preventing opiate addiction and reducing deaths from overdoses.
Coalition leaders say the recent spike in drug overdoses, including fatal ones, has added urgency and helped raise the profile of their work.
In late March, Governor Deval Patrick declared a public health emergency to address what he termed “an epidemic of opiate abuse,” responding to a reported sharp increase in heroin overdoses across the state. A State Police tally found that at least 185 people had died of heroin overdoses from November through mid-February, a figure that did not include the state’s three largest cities and appears to understate the total.
Patrick took several steps to address the crisis, including ordering that the overdose reversal drug Narcan (the brand name for naloxone) be made easily available to first responders, as well as opiate users and their families.
“The spike in overdoses raised the profile of this issue in our four communities,” Blackford said. “There has been a series of very productive conversations with community leaders on the importance of addressing this issue.”
In Revere alone, there were 44 opiate overdoses from Jan. 1 to Feb. 20, based on calls to the Fire Department and the city’s ambulance service, according to Blackford. In a single seven-day period, from Feb. 12 to 18, there were 16 reported opiate overdoses, two of them fatal.
“This is something we really need to stand up and take notice of, and put our efforts together to try and defeat,” said MaryAnn O’Connor, Lynn’s public health director, calling the rise in overdoses a national issue.
Blackford said the Revere-led coalition is focusing on public education. Its plan calls for creating informational materials about opiate abuse, and creating partnerships among school, law enforcement, and other community leaders to promote ongoing collaboration.
Another proposed strategy is to designate trained “navigators” in each community who would help users and their families obtain treatment or tackle issues that could lead to addiction. The plan also proposes continuing the regular training sessions on Narcan use that the coalition has initiated for residents in the four communities.
Narcan is an important tool in saving lives, Blackford said, noting that the Revere Fire Department — the first in the nation to carry the drug on all of its trucks — reversed 120 overdoses between February 2010 and last month.
The Lynn-led coalition seeks to expand and extend to Peabody and Salem some of the initiatives Lynn has begun through previous state grants, according to O’Connor.
The group’s plan calls for increasing the number of sites that distribute Narcan, thereby getting it to more families who need it. The coalition would also encourage pharmacies to stock Narcan and physicians to prescribe it, and train substance-abuse counselors to educate their clients on reducing the risks of overdoses.
Another strategy is to make users and families aware that they can call 911 to report an overdose without fear of arrest if they are not engaged in drug trafficking, and to give police a greater understanding of addiction and of the challenges faced by those struggling with it.
The Medford-led coalition is looking to produce a small pocket guide to inform relatives of users where they can get help, and to undertake “a pretty extensive media campaign around stigma and understanding addiction,” said Penelope Funaiole, program coordinator for the Medford Health Department.
The group also wants to organize forums to enable medical providers to share the best ways to treat patients with addictions, and to encourage more doctors to prescribe Narcan and more pharmacists to carry it.
The Lowell-led coalition hopes to pursue a regional public education campaign focused on alerting people to the risks of opiate abuse, according to Maria Ruggiero, health educator for the city’s Health Department.
It plans a separate marketing effort to make the public aware that the Lowell House, a substance-abuse agency, is a Narcan dispensing site. The coalition also plans to continue a program in which Lowell health staff visit correctional facilities to inform inmates with substance-abuse problems about overdose prevention.
The Gloucester-led coalition hopes to “bring new innovations to deal with this problem and also build upon the strengths of programs that already exist in Gloucester from prior grants,” said Joan Whitney, director of the Healthy Gloucester Collaborative, a city Health Department program that is coordinating the effort.
Its plan includes working with health-care providers to expand opiate abuse prevention in their practices; expanding public education about prescription drug abuse; encouraging more doctors to prescribe Narcan; and having the drug more readily available for use by first responders.
Whitney said she is pleased by the diverse array of groups in the three communities involved in the coalition’s effort.
“It takes a village to address an issue that affects everyone,” she said.
John Laidler can be reached at laidler@globe.com.