Outreach efforts hope to reduce overdose deaths in Marion County

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – Overdose deaths continue to ravage Marion County, with one zip code leading the county in deaths this year.

Friday, the Marion Department of Public Health and local organizations went into neighborhoods, meeting with residents with one goal in mind: Saving lives.

The Marion County Department of Public Health and community partners such as the Damien Center, Overdose Lifeline and Step Up, Inc. spent the afternoon going door-to-door distributing naloxone (Narcan), which is used to stop and overdose and shared information about overdose prevention, treatment resources and risk reduction.

“Through this awareness and making sure that everyone has Narcan, we’re really trying to increase the response time for anyone who has an overdose,” said Madison Weintraut, assistant administrator for the Marion County Department of Public Health.

From January 2024 to September 2024, there were 383 suspected overdose deaths in Marion County, according to data from the Marion County Coroner’s Office.

“For years, this neighborhood has been disproportionately impacted by the opioid crisis, and especially in the second quarter of 2024, we’ve really seen it negatively impacted by both the number of overdoses and the number of deaths.” , Weintraut said.

Fentanyl was found in 40 percent of the drugs tested in the collected syringes, a list that included 4-ANPP, methamphetamine, cocaine, and xylazine. Of the 383 overdoses, 44 were in the 46201 zip code.

The information event is a program of Action overdose dataa grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention administered locally by the Marion County Department of Public Health. Weintraut said this is the first time the organizations have tried the door-to-door method.

“It’s really exciting,” Weintraut said. “Hopefully, if it’s successful, hopefully we can replicate it based on this quarterly data where we see neighborhoods that are negatively impacted.”