Ohio Department of Health director and Trumbull health officials have discussion of drug abuse

Staff report

WARREN

Lance Himes, director of the Ohio Department of Health, visited Trumbull County on Wednesday, participating in a news conference where he talked about state efforts to reduce drug overdose deaths.

Also discussed was the $385,000 Ohio Department of Health grant the Trumbull County Combined Health District has been using for several years to help it combat the problem locally.

Frank Migliozzi, health commissioner for the district, said the county’s prescription-drug overdose death rate in recent years and its percentage of opiate prescriptions being written by doctors have been among the highest in the state.

To combat that, officials wrote a Community Health Assessment, naming precription-drug abuse the group’s No. 1 priority. It was again the top priority when the assessment was revised in 2016, Migliozzi said.

It led the health district to apply for and receive an ODH/federal Prescription Drug Overdose Prevention Grant in 2016, expanding drug-overdose-prevention efforts.

Prescription overdose deaths have dropped since receiving the grant, but overdoses from drugs such as fentanyl rose.

Through this month, overall drug overdose deaths have fallen by more than 50 percent from a record 135 in 20117 to about 60 so far this year.

Sheriff Paul Monroe spoke, saying he believes the work of the Trumbull Ashtabula Group Law Enforcement Task Force, which he and the Ashtabula County sheriff oversee, has succeeded in addressing the county’s drug problem, just as Mothers Against Drunk Driving addressed drunken driving.