Uniting for Healthier Minds and Thriving Careers | Episode 116

Uniting for Healthier Minds and Thriving Careers | Episode 116
Unlock the synergy between mental health recovery and climbing the career ladder as we delve into crucial community support and its power to transform lives. Our esteemed guests, David McCartney and Megan Scott, lend their expertise to Voices for Voices, highlighting the intertwined path of personal growth and professional achievement. We explore how your active participation is the heartbeat of our educational mission, aiming to uplift three billion souls. Discover why Summit County is witnessing a promising dip in overdose fatalities and how initiatives like the poignant postcard campaign are leaving an indelible mark on the community, guiding those in specific demographics toward a brighter tomorrow.

Embark on a compelling journey through the genesis of harm reduction vending machines that grace our streets, offering a beacon of hope with free naloxone, hygiene supplies, and more. With over 6,000 naloxone kits distributed this year alone, our conversation celebrates this leap in community health resources while also acknowledging the expansion of recovery-friendly workforce initiatives. Revel in the progress of partnerships that are dismantling the stigma tied to addiction, making emergency tools like Narcan universally accessible. Together, we're not just bracing for crises but fostering an environment ripe for recovery, inclusivity, and support, one story, one life, one community at a time.

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Chapter Markers
0:01 Mental Health Recovery and Career Advancement
19:21 Expanding Harm Reduction Initiatives and Partnerships

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. I'd like to ask you to subscribe, join, like this episode and other episodes of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast, so we can reach as many people as possible and, in turn, help as many people as we can, with my goal being to help three billion people, or the course of my lifetime and beyond. So pretty, pretty big goal, and we can't do it without you. Voices for Voices is the number one ranked podcast TV show where people turn to for expert mental health recovery and career advancement intelligence. Our Voices for Voices TV show and podcast is all about teaching you insanely actionable techniques to help you prosper, grow your self-worth and your personal brand. So if you're a high achiever or someone who wants more out of life, whether mentally, physically or spiritually, please make sure you subscribe to our TV show and podcast right now. So, as you can see, the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast publishes episodes that focus on case studies, real-life examples, actionable tips and end-to-trents reports and interviews from subscribers just like you. If that sounds like something that could help you grow personally or professionally, then why don't you join me by joining us and subscribing Again on all social media channels YouTube we just added Vimeo and all audio platforms where you consume podcasts and your content that ways. Something new for 2024 is we are also doing a Facebook live every other Friday, called the Bite Weekly Roundup, where we tackle current events that are happening in our community and our nation and in the world. Coming up in October, as we do each year, we have our Voices for Voices a brand new day gala, so keep your eyes peeled for that ticket information and the lineup that we will be having this year. And again, we can't do this without your help, so please help us by subscribing, sharing, liking, commenting on these episodes that we can greatly reach more people than. If not, and if you or your organization is interested, there are sponsorship opportunities available. So please reach out to myself or the Voices for Voices organization, whether you go through our Voices for Voicesorg website or you want to reach out to me at president at Voicesforvoicesorg and again, if you're able to, we are a 501c3 non-profit charity organization and we accept donations year-round.

Speaker 1: 3:16

Okay, so this episode, as all the episodes, are very exciting, very informative, but we're lucky to have in studio a couple of guests who we interviewed last year with the Summit County Public Health Department, sharing information and stats and different activities that the programs and projects are working on to help make our community aware of what's happening, with the overdoses and deaths and the like, where there is, I would say, still maybe a little bit of a stigma around some of the content we're covering and with one of the areas of Voices for Voices, caring about all individuals and wanting to make sure that we are representing all and so making sure we cover this information. We get updates, as we are today, how 2023 finished up and then, as we're in 2024, the great things that we're looking for. So, in studio again, we're lucky to have two guests. We have David McCartney and Megan Scott for this episode, so thank you for joining us today. It's not a problem, happy to be here.

Speaker 3: 4:44

Thanks for having us.

Speaker 1: 4:45

Glad to have you in studio, had you on Zoom, so this is a great change up. So I guess we'll maybe start with the, with the data, since you compile and look at a lot of information and then make sense of it to share. So maybe, if you want to do a summary of the last year, how we're looking this year and maybe some goals and aspirations that we have.

Speaker 2: 5:16

So when we looked at the total number of overdose deaths in Summit County for last year, for 2023, there's about 201 that have been confirmed. That's as of today. Obviously, there are potentials for more to be classified as such as we move forward, but with the best of our ability, we're at 201 today. Most of those overdose deaths occurred within the ages of 25 to 44, which is not uncommon. That's what we've normally been seeing for a while now and so that's not shocking in any capacity. But it's the targeted population that we are focusing on, not that there aren't other initiatives happening in other age categories, but obviously the majority of them are happening there. That's where we're targeting. This number is actually kind of down from 2002 number there was a 214 overdose deaths in 2022. So a slight decrease. Obviously, we want that number to be zero, but a small decrease is still a decrease and we're happy to see that, in terms of gender and sex, there's a disproportionate amount of overdose deaths that occur in males in Summit County compared to females. Summit County is roughly like 48 male, 52% female around there. And then the overdose death population it was 68% males and 32% females. So you know, not an equal spread there when we look at the race of overdose deaths, the black population was slightly higher of those represented in overdose deaths, but still pretty similar to Summit County. Summit County is about 77% white, and so the overdose deaths 72% of them were white. 25% black. Identifying individuals Summit County is about 22% black, so slight disproportion there, but not terrible.

Speaker 2: 7:20

When we look at the numbers of codes, that are the top 10 from 2022. The top five four of them are the same as they were on the top five Different order, but still those same areas are still facing some sort of crisis. That's happening, and so 4406, 203, 314, and 312 equaled about 73 decedents, which is about 30 percent 36 percent of all overdose deaths. So if over a third of the overdose deaths were happening in four specific locations, again we're going to be targeting efforts in that area and hopefully make some sort of impact. We did that in 2022 whenever we had the postcard campaign, and so we targeted specific zip codes for that population that was seeing an increase and you know that we had success with you know, I can't think Megan can talk a bit more about that as well.

Speaker 2: 8:21

And when we look at the drug of choice, or drugs and systems for those who had overdosed. 82 percent of them had fentanyl, so that's about 164 individuals. Methamphetamine was about 72 individuals, or 36 percent. Cocaine was 60 individuals, or about 30 percent of the population. But you know, those numbers obviously equal more than 100, and so it's possible and very likely that there are a lot of those that have multiple substances, polysubstance use, and so 60 percent of all overdose deaths accounted had some sort of multiple substance in their system. So that's about 120 of those individuals out of the 201.

Speaker 2: 9:07

So a decent portion, when we look at all those numbers I just went over, are for the accidental overdoses. Sometimes there are cases that are identified as intentional overdoses, and so there's not a whole lot in that category. So I'm not going to go over too many specifics because it's not pertinent, but there was not. Not pertinent but it's not data safe, like I can't share a whole lot of that. So there were seven individuals in that category, but those are just the overdosed deaths, and so when we look at overdosing in terms of ER visits, we have to consider two different things. So this is the number of overdoses that are seeking medical attention, and then there are also reporting issues with one system, so we're not getting the full picture, but from what we have from a couple of the hospital systems, we can see kind of what's going on.

Speaker 2: 10:11

So when we look at overdoses in the ER, when we look at age, we still see 25 to 44 being the largest population. It's about 60% of the total number of overdoses that are counted in the ER, and if you look back at the overdoses for overdosed deaths it's about 54%. So still like that big swath there. When we look at sex, it's a bit more equal and representative of the population of Summit County, still disproportionately heading towards males, but it's 43% female, 57% male. So not as much as the 32 and 68 as we saw in deaths, but still a disproportion there. And then when we look at race of ER visits, 70% identified as white and almost 30% identified as black. So again a much larger disparity in ER visits when it comes to the amount of population that we see in those spaces.

Speaker 2: 11:17

I know I went over a lot of data very quickly. That's good, that's cool, and so I would be more than happy to elaborate on any questions you might have about that or what efforts we're looking at to, you know, impact those populations. We are starting to work towards a lot more partnerships for reaching out to the Black community, making sure that we are being very intentional with our efforts and that it is representative of them, and it's not just we're here to save you, we're here to help you, but more of an intentional let us walk with you. And then we're also starting to spread our efforts into more LGBTQ initiatives.

Speaker 2: 11:58

So, when it comes to data for those populations, not all hospital systems, not all medical systems, not all data reporting systems even include that metric, so it's harder to capture that when you are looking at it. So, unless you're, obviously that person is known or you can count that where it's reported in some capacity. Sometimes, for example, with the overdose deaths data, the medical examiner will have notes in there, so it could be described as there. But again, that's just the assumption, so it's very hard to track that as a specific category, and so we're trying to figure out a way that we can start to improve that, because we know anecdotally, those populations exist. We know that that population uses substances just as much as the general public, if not more so, and so trying to figure out the best way to do that. That's kind of what we're working forward.

Speaker 1: 12:59

Great. Thank you for sharing that information. Maybe you can level set the viewers, the listeners, on the sources of where you're pulling the data, and I'm just guessing that it's not one database that you're pulling, that you're using a multitude.

Speaker 2: 13:16

Yeah, so most of it does come from the medical examiner's office for that for the overdose deaths, when it comes to overdose, the R visits. That comes from EpiCenter, which is a data reporting system that most of the hospital systems and most medical systems report into through ODH, and so you know we can pull that data from what we can pull. But again, some issues are happening within medical systems where they're not able to report, so we don't have that full picture. So you know what we have on the dashboard on our website it's only a glimmer of what we have. Then also, again, like I said, those are only the cases that are reported for seeking medical attention.

Speaker 2: 14:03

We also know that this community takes care of themselves and of each other, and so you know, reported overdoses that's a smaller number. There's a lot more overdoses that are happening in the community than what we're seeing on the data reporting. So you know we have to take that with a grain of salt as well. So, again, anecdotally, we hear things from the individuals coming through the syringe exchange program at Summit County Public Health.

Speaker 2: 14:30

We hear it from people who are ordering Narcan or in a lock zone. So you know it's a lot. It's hard to capture the exact picture and put an exact number on it, but we do what we can with what we know, and so we don't know what we don't know, and so, unfortunately, it would be great to have all that information, all that data in one central location, but we have to go with what we have.

Speaker 1: 15:00

Yeah, and I just think from a career aspect and we may have talked a little about this last year and season two there's a lot of different industries, a lot of different jobs out there and how the Summit County Public Health Department came to light for you and I'll let you talk about the tie-in, maybe not just having the position to be a job, but there's an emotional tie to helping the community and helping, you know, talk about helping the community heal. But first we have to get to the heart of the issue, the data, to find out where we can help impact with programming. So if you could touch on that, so I've always wanted to help people.

Speaker 2: 15:51

I knew growing up that ideally, you know when you're a kid you have all these big aspirations, and so med school was the dream. But during college I found out that there are a lot of other ways to help individuals and help people on a larger scale than just an appointment-based type of thing. And so I started my career working in LGBTQ health and sexual health, and that was at Planned Parenthood. And then over to Kansas City Public Health where I worked in harm reduction. As this coordinator for a Listerine Exchange program, I helped initiate HIV prevention medication efforts across my eight county region that I was assigned.

Speaker 2: 16:33

And then during COVID, obviously that burned a lot of people out so that direct service care started to be a little overwhelming for me. So I still wanted to stay in public health, I still wanted to work in the harm reduction space. But doing it now in the back end is a little bit more less taxing but still allows me to use the skills that I've learned to allow myself to still insert myself into that community, still have an impact on that community through the grants that I help write, through the data that I help look at, through stepping in when I need to, on a bunch of other grant reporting systems or anything else, and so in that aspect you don't have to necessarily go through all those steps. But that's how I kind of came to where I am and it's been a journey.

Speaker 1: 17:33

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 17:35

But also it's been a lot of fun and I have not regretted any single day of it.

Speaker 1: 17:41

So yeah, you're making a huge difference in the community and I think overall we think about the United States as a whole that the United States and other countries as well are dealing with some of the same things and I just commend both of you on the work that you're doing, because it is making a difference right here in Summit County in Northeast Ohio. But the work that you're doing and the hope with this platform is to be able to share that not only in the area but across the country, across the road, and hopefully have other cities and states and counties if they're not already reporting and looking to help the community heal that have your department and be a kind of a benchmark of here's what we're doing and here's what we could share as best practices. So I wanted to share that. So maybe we'll shift gears a little bit to Megan about how 2023 ended and then maybe some of the same programs and same goals for 2024.

Speaker 3: 19:03

Yeah, absolutely so. David handles a lot more of the data and the numbers. Obviously, he is great at that stuff and I'm a little bit more programmatic. So when I was here last time, I talked about our syringe program, our syringe services program, really all of the harm reduction work that we do In 2023,.

Speaker 3: 19:21

After we recorded the podcast, we actually were able to install two separate harm reduction vending machines, which was an incredible success for us last year. One of them is at a treatment agency and the other one is in a municipal building in one of our cities and they have naloxone and fentanyl test strips. They have sharps containers that are small and easily hidden. But we also included hygiene supplies. We know we have a large houseless population and people experiencing homelessness in our county, so we have hygiene, first aid, menstrual products. We have all kinds of things in there that people can use. It's all completely free and available to the community, so those were a huge success for us. We are hoping to get some more out in the community as soon as we can. I know you're gonna talk to Maggie in another episode about recovery-friendly workforce, so she'll have some great updates on that.

Speaker 3: 20:14

It's really expanded as well, but we also were able to distribute over 6,000 kits of naloxone throughout 2023.

Speaker 3: 20:24

And that's through a vast majority through our mail order and our Surringe Service Program, but also the increase in partnerships that we had.

Speaker 3: 20:32

So, through partners like the ADM, various different treatment organizations, grass root organizations, even businesses and some of our criminal justice partnerships, they distribute naloxone for free to anybody who needs it. At events or some police stations and fire stations you can just walk right into with no questions asked and get a kit of Narcan. So kind of like David was saying, we tried to focus on specific zip codes and creating partnerships with agencies that work with specific populations, like our black population, our LGBTQ population, working with agencies that already have those relationships, so that we can meet people where they are and ask them what they need, as opposed to traditionally saying here's what we have. Come and get it really being intentional about providing services to people in a way that makes sense for them and in a way that they can grasp onto them. So our increase in partnerships allowed for an increase in naloxone distribution and various other ways that we've been able to get out into the community.

Speaker 1: 21:39

Great and that's what I was gonna ask. It seems that the movement is picking up steam in a positive way Additional partnerships, hopefully continuing that downward trend of overdose deaths, just having that information available that I talk about in my classroom. And marketing, about having a brand, and you have to have that awareness first before you can get to the conversion or the actionable steps or the exchange and having a kid available or knowing that the community cares. So I think that's a big thing to highlight as well.

Speaker 3: 22:21

I think so too, and I think one of the things that we do is Nalox boxes We've talked about those, I think, last time too where you can hang it on a wall A community organization, business can hang it on a wall and they are wonderful to have, just like an AED in the event of emergency. One of the really nice things I like about them, though, is they also address stigma, in the sense that it helps to normalize the fact that, just like any other medical emergency, we are acknowledging the fact that an overdose is a medical emergency and that person needs medical attention and not to be stigmatized or looked at a certain way or ignored just because their medical emergency is different than a heart attack might be. So being able to place those Nalox boxes in places where people can see them regularly really allows to get that message out, that this is an issue that can be resolved. This is something that somebody is enduring or suffering from, and we can help them. Any lay person can help them, and that's what we should do.

Speaker 1: 23:18

Yeah, I mean the hope is that we wouldn't have to use those. But in reference to my own personal life with my family, my father going on to hospice care, one of the things that Will has mentioned he may not need certain equipment or certain medications right now, but the nurses feel like, hey, let's have them in the house in case something happens in the middle of the night and we can't get there in time. And I feel like, in a little bit of a parallel sense, of having those Nalox boxes. We hope we never have to use them, but in case we do, we have that and I think that's important for the community to know that they don't. There's not a stigma by having that feeling like, oh, because I'm getting it means I'm going to use it, or somebody in my organization or community.

Speaker 3: 24:15

It really just shows that as an organization, you're supporting the community. Not that you are a particular type of organization whatsoever, and I think I'm sorry to hear about your father in hospice, but that is a great example of another way that we try to address stigma is that overdoses don't just happen to the stereotype that some media likes to portray. Overdoses can happen to anyone who's on a pain management. Overdoses can happen to anybody who forgot they took their medication this morning and take it again. So it can happen to absolutely anyone.

Speaker 3: 24:46

And judging someone on how they look or what we may perceive of them, really it isn't fair to the person, but it also isn't fair to our own perceptions of the people around us. So we promote there's several pharmacies that will give out Narcan to anyone who picks up a prescription of an opioid. There's some pharmacies that have it for sale now that it's been approved for over the counter, and there's a lot of different ways that we really just try to get the word out that if you have someone in your home who's on pain medicine, absolutely you should have Narcan in your home because it just protects your family member.

Speaker 1: 25:20

Right, and there's obviously accidental overdoses that happen and it can happen on college campuses and some of these non-traditional ways of I think there's obviously a stigma in overdoses and opioids and pain management. And then there's, I think, another layer of okay, it only happens in certain areas and certain populations, while there is a majority 25 to 44 that they can happen and at their To anyone at any time, just like any other mental health or medical issue.

Speaker 3: 25:56

It can be absolutely anyone, and I'll even highlight some of the data that David pointed out about those poly substance uses. That is really important, because I don't think it is a shock to anyone to know that college students like to experiment a little bit, and what we're seeing is that sometimes people may not know what they're getting, so they could be very innocently being a 22-year-old and unfortunately get something that they weren't expecting. So that's just another area where we try to get the word out that protecting yourself is important and being aware of what you have is important. So we advertise our Narcanibals, our fentanyl test strips so they can test whatever supply they have, and that goes for any population. But I think we can all admit that the college students are going to be college students and there's nothing we can do to stop that.

Speaker 1: 26:50

Yeah well, I hate to cut this episode short. I think we still have some questions we can talk about in another episode, so we'll close this one out and then we'll come back.

Speaker 3: 27:02

Alright.

Speaker 1: 27:03

So for our listeners, our viewers, this has been another episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. I'm your host, justin Allen Hayes. We had in studio here for this episode David McCartney, megan Scott. They're going to join us for a second episode, so keep your eyes peeled for part two of our conversation. So until next time, please be a voice for you or somebody in need.