The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), in partnership with the Michigan Municipal League (MML), the Michigan Township Association (MTA), the Michigan Association of Counties (MAC), and the Michigan Attorney General’s Office (AG) will be hosting two upcoming webinars on the Distributor/Janssen Opioid Settlements. The next webinar on treatment will be held on Tuesday, May 3, 3:00-4:00PM, and the following webinar on prevention strategies will be held on Tuesday, May 17, 3:00-4:00PM.

The link to register in advance and to join the webinar on treatment strategies can be found here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEkdO-hqjMoEtLe1Q2qTr5b0Xmj3e24Zzwr

The webinar on prevention strategies will be held on Tuesday, May 17, 3:00-4:00PM. Register in advance for or to join the meeting, use the link here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwucemsrj8qHdFHFLYpH2rMo3XgncnrxHwe

There will be a Question and Answer period during the webinar. Participants may email questions directly to MDHHS-OpioidsTaskForce@michigan.gov, before May 3 for the treatment webinar and May 17 for the prevention webinar.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Conference Opioid Settlement Resources

• Johns Hopkins School of Public Health
  • https://opioidprinciples.jhsph.edu/the-principles/ – 5 guiding principles for municipalities receiving settlement dollars. Between the legislation, advisory committee, and promotion of evidence-based practices, we are totally on target with this.
  • https://opioidprinciples.jhsph.edu/implementation-tools/ – Available readiness assessments that communities can use to gauge where they are before receiving funds; a downloadable primer on 9 spending categories for local municipalities.
• North Carolina
  • https://ncopioidsettlement.org/ – Provides data dashboards that cities can use to view data in their own county related to OD deaths, prescribing, hospitalizations, etc, but also social determinants of health. They plan to make it bidirectional so municipalities can provide information on their local budgets and expenditures, which will be viewable in the data dashboard.
  • https://unc.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIscemqpj4uEt2LFTVTBeOJRjI9JswbdhLU – link to register for a webinar they are doing about the data dashboard
• https://nationalopioidsettlement.com/ – Unofficial data repository related to the settlement in all states. Johns Hopkins said they use this website all the time.
• https://www.opioidsettlementtracker.com/ – another website that tracks disbursement that Johns Hopkins is utilizing.
• https://www.reportingonaddiction.org/ – This is a group that is a collaboration between journalists and experts in addiction medicine. Essentially they work to train each side on how best to talk to one another in an effort to stop perpetuating stigma in the media.

Herasanna Richards is a legislative associate handling energy, environmental, elections, and external municipal services for the League. She can be reached at hrichards@mml.org or 517-908-0309.