Rice County Substance Use and Overdose Profile

• Learn the language of substance use disorder and practice using words that can reduce stigma.
• Support those in your life that might be impacted by substance use disorder and opioid use disorder or are in recovery by being non-judgmental and listening.
• Join a community task force that is focusing on improving access to drug treatment, harm reduction services, or other social services necessary for recovery like housing and employment opportunities.  
• Learn about how substance use is influenced by many different factors by reading about the social determinants of substance use & overdose prevention.
• Complete a Naloxone (also called Narcan) training and carry Naloxone, a drug that can be used to reverse an overdose. The following organizations offer Naloxone trainings:
  • Hennepin County Public Health's Red Door Clinic
  • Indigenous Peoples Task Force
  • Steve Rummler HOPE Network
  • Rural AIDS Action Network

• Explore funding opportunities to increase capacity to monitor substance use in your community and fund prevention programming.
• Subscribe to the MDH Opioid Overdose Prevention e-mail list to get regular updates on data, programming, research, and funding opportunities.
• Lead a community task force focused on reducing substance use and overdose in your community.
• Provide regular Naloxone trainings to the community.
• Become knowledgeable of local prevention work. Connecting with Rice County Public Health and with the Southeast regional prevention coordinator is a great place to start.

• Support patients exploring alternative pain management methods and reduce opiate prescriptions.
• Review the Minnesota chronic pain opioid prescribing recommendations. 
• Prescribe naloxone to all patients that are also prescribed or are using opioids.
• Become a buprenorphine waivered practitioner to provide medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) to patients.
• Learn about the TOWN model, developed by CHI St. Gabriel’s, that can support people who use drugs or people in recovery.

Drug use and overdose data is collected from many different sources, all of which have their own unique limitations. For example, nonfatal overdose information that comes from hospital discharge data does not always have race or ethnicity included. We know that race and ethnicity influence a person’s access to substance use treatment and likelihood to die from an overdose. If data is not available by race or ethnicity, it does not mean that there are not disparities present. It is also important to note that MDH does not report data on sex or age at the county level due to small numbers. Learn more on Differences in Rates of Drug Overdose Deaths by Race.

For other data indicators, some of the numbers are so small it can be difficult to understand what they mean or how this data could be used to change or develop prevention programming. Sometimes, data is unavailable. When data is unavailable, it does not mean that the issue is not present, rather it means we don’t currently have a good system in place to track and share this information.

For example, in some small counties, there could be a year without any fatal opioid overdoses and very few nonfatal overdoses. These small numbers do not tell us that substance use is not an issue in this county. There are many other negative health effects from using substances that are not collected as data points, such as having trouble maintaining a job, safe housing, or relationships with family and friends. For more detail on data limitations, please review the Drug Overdose Data Sources webpage.

Due to the nature of the current reporting systems, it takes some time for data to be updated. Data that MDH collects and publishes is often at least six months to a year behind because of the time it takes to verify data and write publications. If you need data that is not currently available on our website, contact Health.DrugODEpi@state.mn.us.

For more detail on data limitations, please review the Drug Overdose Data Sources webpage.

• Minnesota Injury Data Access System (MIDAS) 
  Injury and violence data for Minnesotans by county, type of injury, gender, timeframe, and other factors 
• Substance Use in Minnesota (SUMN) 
  Minnesota data on alcohol, drugs, risk and protective factors, and mental health by region, county, and demographics 
• Minnesota Prescription Monitoring Program (PMP) 
  PMP annual reports and monthly data 
• Minnesota Student Survey (MSS)
  Reports on student survey results from 2013, 2016, and 2019
• Statewide Data Reports published by MDH
  Published reports on drug overdose deaths, nonfatal overdose, and others