INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (Verbatim): The Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) has received $519,117 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to expand overdose prevention outreach in Indiana counties with high overdose rates.

The award was announced on International Overdose Awareness Day, which aims to raise awareness of overdose and reduce the stigma of drug-related deaths.

The funding will be used to provide education and training in naloxone use for first responders and lay providers, as well as technical assistance to local coalitions and increasing awareness of opioid prescribing habits. It also will help enhance data reports for counties to inform local efforts to combat overdoses. The award runs through Aug. 31, 2017.

The counties served by the new funding are Clark, Crawford, Delaware, Grant, Jennings, LaPorte, Marion, Morgan, Pulaski, Sullivan, Tipton and Washington. Blackford, Starke, Montgomery, Lawrence, Howard and Vanderburgh counties had already been receiving assistance through another grant.

“I am pleased that ISDH has an opportunity to help our most vulnerable counties prevent overdoses that can take terrible tolls on families and communities,” said State Health Commissioner Jerome Adams, M.D., M.P.H. “By helping at-risk counties assess their data in real time and educating them about naloxone and the role prescribing plays in this epidemic, we can make real progress in the fight against opioid abuse.”

In 2014, the most recent year for which final data are available, 452 individuals in Indiana died of drug overdoses involving opioids, and 2,822 people visited emergency departments due to opioid overdoses. Preliminary death data for 2015 indicates that 595 individuals in Indiana died of drug overdoses involving opioids that year.