The Florida Department of Health’s (DOH) work to combat the overdose crisis aligns with our mission to protect, promote, and improve the health of all people in Florida through integrated state, county, and community efforts.

Overdose prevention aligns with the Florida State Health Improvement Plan (SHIP) within the priority area of mental well-being and substance abuse prevention, including opioid use.

Florida’s overdose epidemic continues to pose a considerable challenge that DOH addresses through surveillance, prevention, education, and policy efforts. The Florida Overdosa Data to Action in States (OD2A-S) program has a direct connection to the DOH Strategic Plan in the strategic priority area of long, healthy life and the goal to increase health life expectancy, including the reduction of health disparities to improve the health of all groups. 

OD2A-S is funded through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Overdose Data to Action cooperative agreement. The program launched in September 2019 and funds 89 jurisdictions across the country, including state, county, city, and territorial health departments. The goal of OD2A is to enhance overdose surveillance, in order to develop data informed overdose prevention activities.

OD2A-S believes that by improving the surveillance systems necessary for gathering complete and real-time data on overdoses and using that data to inform prevention and response efforts within own activities and those of our community partners at the state and local levels.

OD2A-S's intent is to ensure that our prevention policies and actions and those of our partners and stakeholders are well-informed to do relevant and efficacious work within surveillance and prevention and further to ensure that these components are implemented as part of a cohesive system response to ultimately decrease the rate of opioid misuse and opioid use disorder within our state as part of a combined national effort.

Monitoring and Surveillance

• OD2A includes Florida’s Drug Overdose Surveillance and Epidemiology (FL-DOSE)
• FLHealthCHARTS: Substance Use Dashboard
• Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) as a reportable event, tracked by the FL Birth Defects Registry
• Florida’s Prehospital Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Tracking and Reporting System (EMSTARS)
• Syndromic Surveillance System - Florida Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community-based Epidemics (FL-ESSENCE)
• Florida Vital Statistics

Reducing and Managing Access

• Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP)
• County Health Departments Syringe Exchange Programs