Opioid Overdoses in the Fairfax Health District

The dashboard is needed to inform the public of the trends in opioid overdoses in the Fairfax Health District. We want everyone to know that, while there may be differences in the risk of overdose from one person to another, everyone who uses substances or is prescribed opioids is at risk of overdose. We also want to keep the public informed on the trends (up or down) of overdoses, which reflect both the size of the problem and the extent of the County’s activities to counteract the effects of the opioid overdose epidemic on county residents.

The dashboard uses two primary sources of information. The first is the Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community-based Epidemics (ESSENCE). The ESSENCE system receives notifications from emergency rooms and urgent care centers in the Fairfax Health District about the number of visits they receive, the chief complaints of patients, and the diagnoses given by the healthcare providers at the end of the visit. Staff at the Fairfax County Health Department have an agreement with the Virginia Department of Health for access to ESSENCE data.

The second source of information is the Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME). Virginia is a medical examiner state. As a result, every death that is “suspicious, unexpected and sudden” is investigated by the OCME. The medical examiner posts information on drug overdose-related deaths on their website.

The dashboard will be updated every month during the first week of the month. Annotations on the dashboard will indicate when the last update to the dashboard happened.

Non-fatal opioid overdose counts may differ from external reports developed by other agencies due to differences in case definitions.