Opioid overdose deaths have grown ten-fold in Michigan since 2000, and the opioid epidemic continues to be a major public health crisis impacting thousands of Michiganders and their loved ones.

To improve coordinated community response to opioid overdoses, University of Michigan researchers are placing near-real time data in the hands of public health and safety officers.

“Our non-fatal data coverage is statewide and the mortality data reports now cover about 60 counties and about 90% of the state’s population,” said Jason Goldstick, Ph.D., an associate professor of emergency medicine at Michigan Medicine.

“The Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention at the University of Michigan is working on a surveillance system modeled after SOS that will focus on firearm injuries in the state,” said Goldstick.

Dr. Goldstick spoke with The Good Men Project about the use of the Michigan System for Opioid Overdose Surveillance and how that system is being used as a model for firearm injuries at the University of Michigan.