Law Enforcement-Based Outreach and Treatment Referral as a Response to Opioid Misuse: Assessing Reductions in Overdoses and Costs

Abstract

To reduce opioid-involved overdoses, law enforcement agencies have taken proactive steps to connect people to treatment and supportive services. This study evaluates the impact of a law enforcement-based outreach and treatment referral program known as Hero Help on the incidence and costs of overdoses occurring in the jurisdiction of Delaware’s New Castle County Division of Police (NCCPD). It first compares observed and predicted fatal and nonfatal overdoses between 2013 and 2021. A time series analysis shows an average decrease of 7.25 nonfatal and 1.85 fatal overdoses per month since the program’s two expansions of its civilian care team. It then adapts Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and health care cost data to estimate the cost reductions of fewer overdoses. These metrics suggest Hero Help saved the community $21.5 million per month. Police departments can then reduce the incidence and economic burden of overdoses through outreach and referrals to treatment.

Police officer attitudes toward pre-arrest behavioral health diversion programs: identifying determinants of support for deflection using a machine learning method

“…Given the relatively short histories of deflection programs (i.e. just over five years since the creation of the Hero Help program, see Donnelly et al (2021Donnelly et al ( , 2022, it is possible that officers have not had enough experience with programs to form more solidified and complicated views on deflection, as demonstrated in Green et al (2013).…”

Post-overdose follow-up in the community with peer recovery specialists: The Lake Superior Diversion and Substance Use Response Team

“…National prevalence of post-overdose follow-up efforts suggests most programs include law enforcement during the follow-up, most often with EMS ( Ray et al, 2023 ). Research on these efforts has been limited primarily to case studies and state-wide surveys with findings that suggests little consistency in the practices, partners, or services provided and largely focused on efforts led by, or that include sworn law enforcement in the follow-up response with little rigorous evaluation of effectiveness ( Canada and Formica, 2022 ; Davoust et al., 2021 ; Donnelly et al., 2022 ; Formica et al., 2018 , 2022 ; Tori et al., 2022 ; Wagner et al., 2016 ). Important concerns have been raised about post-overdose response involving law enforcement, from unintended effects through increased mistrust of social services ( Doe-Simkins et al., 2022 ; Latimore and Bergstein, 2017 ; van der Meulen et al., 2021 ; Wagner et al., 2021 ) to specific activities like “warrant checking,” prior to outreach that might ultimately undermine program goals ( Tori et al., 2022 ).…”