Tribal Opioid Overdose Prevention Responses: COVID-19 and the Pivot to Telehealth

Over the last four years, the National Network of Public Health Institutes has collaborated with Seven Directions, an indigenous public health institute, on a multi-year project funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that seeks to improve the capacity of tribal public health systems by strengthening epidemiologic surveillance and public health data infrastructure, increasing implementation of evidence-based health interventions in health systems, and highlighting effective current opioid overdose prevention (OOP) activities grounded in respecting tribal sovereignty, as well as cultural knowledge and traditions. Through this project, Seven Directions has provided technical assistance to tribes and organizations, as well as developed and maintained a robust community of practice and focused on critical priorities such as program adaptations to COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic has represented changes and challenges for tribal opioid overdose prevention programs and, at the same time, created new opportunities and pathways to support prevention, treatment, recovery, and care coordination. This session will provide an overview of the pandemic’s impact on American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) communities and substance use disorder (SUD), opioid use disorder (OUD), and OOP programming. Presenters will update the Environmental Scan (2019) and the Models of Tribal Promising Practices brief (2020) with COVID-19-induced and telehealth-specific programmatic pivoting for SUD/OUD/OOP services that many tribes, tribal programs, tribal epidemiology centers, and urban Indian organizations undertook in 2020 and 2021. While information is still limited, the challenges, successes, and stories shared here reveal adaptations that began for most tribal communities in March 2020.