Michael Bloomberg began funding state overdose programs in 2018. Bloomberg Philanthropies initially concentrated its work in Pennsylvania and Michigan as opioid deaths contributed to a decline in US life expectancy. Eight years later, the foundation has committed a total of $335 million to the overdose crisis, including a new $150 million investment covering six states. The latest funding will continue work in Kentucky, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina and Wisconsin while adding Washington, which still has one of the country’s highest overdose death rates despite recent improvements. The foundation is ending its direct work in Pennsylvania and Michigan after helping the states establish programs intended to continue independently.The foundation announced the $150 million commitment at the ninth annual Bloomberg American Health Summit in Baltimore. It will be used to make treatment for opioid use disorder available to incarcerated people and through hospital emergency departments in all six states. The program will also expand access to naloxone, a medication that can reverse an opioid overdose, and help governments direct money from opioid-related legal settlements towards treatment and prevention.
Why prisons and emergency departments are a focus
People leaving prison and patients who survive an overdose face a particularly high risk of dying later. A 2007 Washington study found that formerly incarcerated people were 129 times more likely than the general population to die from an overdose during the first two weeks after release.Research published in 2018 also found that overdose survivors who received medication treatment in an emergency department were less likely to die from a later overdose. The initiative therefore focuses on providing medicines such as buprenorphine in prisons, jails and hospitals, where people at greater risk can receive treatment quickly.The six participating states are expected to make opioid-use treatment available in every prison and hospital emergency department. Washington is joining the program, while the other five states will continue to receive support.
What the initiative reports achieving since 2018
The program has helped all 24 state prisons in Pennsylvania to start offering buprenorphine. It funded an online system in Michigan that allows community organisations to order and distribute naloxone without individual prescriptions.All prisons in New Jersey and Wisconsin now provide medication for opioid use disorder. More than 75% of emergency departments across New Jersey, Michigan, and Pennsylvania have also started offering these treatments, up from an average of 28% previously.Overdose deaths in the foundation’s focus states fell almost 15 percentage points more than the national average in 2024, the foundation said. The annual report had previously noted an average 31% drop across seven participating states that year, compared to a 27% national decline.The initiative has also expanded Medicaid-covered treatment for postpartum parents in Kentucky and access to fentanyl test strips in New Mexico. It says more than half of US states now use evidence-based guidelines when deciding how to spend money received through opioid settlements.“Even one death from an overdose is too many,” Bloomberg said. “The overdose epidemic continues to be one of the hardest public health crises our nation faces. Now is the time to accelerate this hard-fought progress, expand access to treatment, and save more lives.”