“Under the leadership of President Trump, USDA is committed to being
a strong partner to rural America in addressing this monumental
challenge,” Hazlett said. “Local leaders in small towns across our
country need access to user-friendly and relevant data to help them
build grassroots solutions for prevention, treatment and recovery.”
The opioid misuse Community Assessment Tool enables users to overlay
substance misuse data against socioeconomic, census and other public
information. This data will help leaders, researchers and
policymakers assess what actions will be most effective in
addressing the opioid crisis at the local level.
The Community Assessment Tool is free and available to the public.
It can be accessed on USDA’s Rural Opioid Misuse Webpage or at
opioidmisuse tool.norc.org/.
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USDA’s launch of the Community Assessment Tool closely follows
President Trump’s declaration of October as National Substance Abuse
Prevention Month. Approximately 72,000 Americans died from drug
overdoses in 2017; 49,000 of those deaths involved an opioid. Many
of these deaths have been fueled by the misuse of prescription pain
medications. The severity of the current opioid misuse crisis
requires immediate action.
Rural Development partnered with the Walsh Center for Rural Health
Analysis at NORC at the University of Chicago to create the
Community Assessment Tool.
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NORC at the University of Chicago is a non-partisan research institution that
delivers reliable data and rigorous analysis to guide critical programmatic,
business and policy decisions. Today, government, corporate and nonprofit
organizations around the world partner with NORC to transform increasingly
complex information into useful knowledge. The Walsh Center focuses on a wide
array of issues affecting rural providers and residents, including health care
quality and public health systems.
In April 2017, President Donald J. Trump established the Interagency Task Force
on Agriculture and Rural Prosperity to identify legislative, regulatory and
policy changes that could promote agriculture and prosperity in rural
communities. In January 2018, Secretary Perdue presented the Task Force’s
findings to President Trump. These findings included 31 recommendations to align
the federal government with state, local and tribal governments to take
advantage of opportunities that exist in rural America. Increasing investments
in rural infrastructure is a key recommendation of the task force.
To view the report in its entirety, please view the Report to the President of
the United States from the Task Force on Agriculture and Rural Prosperity (PDF,
5.4 MB). In addition, to view the categories of the recommendations, please view
the Rural Prosperity infographic (PDF, 190 KB).
USDA Rural Development provides loans and grants to help expand economic
opportunities and create jobs in rural areas. This assistance supports
infrastructure improvements; business development; housing; community facilities
such as schools, public safety and health care; and high-speed internet access
in rural areas. For more information, visit
www.rd.usda.gov.
[Rural Development] |