Cuyahoga County Board of Health receives $2.8M from CDC to fight overdoses

CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) - The Cuyahoga County Board of Health has received a $2.8 million grant to aid in the prevention of overdoses in the community.

They received the award on Aug. 31, which is Overdose Awareness Day in Ohio and many other states.

Funds were made available to the board Sept. 1.

“When we’re able to interact with people who are in recovery or if we hear stories of somebody who saved someone else’s life, it’s really inspiring to all of us who are working on this and even people who are not connected to this grant directly, I know there’s so many people working to figure this out,” Supervisor of Cuyahoga County Board of Health, Becky Karns said.

The funds from the grant will be going to many different programs, including the ones listed below.

Since the board received the second award, they plan on heading in a slightly different direction than before.

“One of the things that we noticed in the first funding award was that we were really focused on Linkage to care for our all populations,” Karns said.

“This time around we are still going to be doing that, but we also want to kind of genuinely engage with populations who may be disproportionately affected by the overdose,” she said

The board will be receiving the $2.8 million yearly, for the next three years.

Their funding will end on Aug. 31, 2028.

Copyright 2023 WOIO. All rights reserved.