The Massachusetts Health Officers Association (MHOA) recently released Essential Measures: A Local Public Health Toolkit for Addressing the Opioid Epidemic. The toolkit has been endorsed by the Massachusetts Coalition of Public Health (the five major public health associations of the state) and communities can use it as a framework to plan from, initiate, expand upon, and collaborate on the epidemic that hits every town and city across the nation. The toolkit’s framework encompasses the 10 Essential Services of Public Health. In addition, there are best practices from other communities that can be followed and shaped from. MHOA interviewed communities and coalitions of all sizes: large, medium, and small, to follow the makeup of Massachusetts.
Although best practices and tools and resources may be Massachussetts-orientated, this tool can be used as a best practice to share across the nation as a framework for other states to utilize and/or transform from for their own state. Additionally, MHOA hopes other states, cities, counties, etc. will share best practices across the nation for us to include and share within the online toolkit! The more sharing and collaboration, the better!