Rural areas now have the highest incarceration rates in the United States. Rural incarceration rates have been steadily increasing for decades, coinciding with a worsening overdose epidemic. A period of incarceration significantly increases the risk for an individual who uses opioids to experience a fatal overdose post-release. In the two weeks following prison release, the risk of opioid overdose is extremely high, and the risk of death from opioid overdose is 50 times greater than that in the general population. Other estimates suggest that county-level overdose deaths are attributable to individuals with a recent incarceration. Incarceration can disrupt opioid use disorder treatment and create barriers to receipt of opioid use disorder treatment post-release, and most rural jail facilities do not offer evidence-based treatment within their facilities.

This webinar will discuss opportunities to improve opioid use disorder care for individuals in jail based on the development of a cascade-of-care. Included in this discussion will be to describe differences in how standardized screening tools for opioid use disorder can be integrated into the jail-booking process across four unique jail settings. The goal of this webinar is to provide information on how data relevant to standardized screening results, along with administrative jail records, can be used to construct a cascade-of-care for opioid use disorder and identify missed opportunities for intervention.

Presenter: Grant Victor, PhD, MSW

Dr. Victor is a social worker with interdisciplinary training in public health and clinical research. He received postdoctoral research training and support from the Center for Behavioral Health and Justice at Wayne State University and earned his PhD and MSW from the University of Kentucky. Dr. Victor is a community-driven researcher who uses mixed-methods approaches to understand how health concerns related to substance use interacts within the context of the criminal/legal system (e.g., jails, prisons, law enforcement, and crisis response) and drug policy. The goal of his research is to mitigate the risk of fatal and non-fatal overdose by incorporating harm reduction approaches. Dr. Victor’s work has contributed to the understanding of the iatrogenic effect of criminal/legal systems on health and well-being by conducting methodologically rigorous time-to-event approaches and by leveraging administrative data to inform overdose prevention strategies.

For registration, click here.