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Six Innovations in Settlement Fund Spending

By Abigail Winiker

As states and localities have begun to receive payouts from opioid settlement litigation over the past several years, examples of innovative and promising spending efforts across the country are emerging.   

To elevate these promising practices, we compiled a resource to highlight six settlement funded program innovations. Click here to read about the innovations, see case examples, and learn about the evidence underlying these strategies.  

On March 25, the Johns Hopkins Center for Mental Health and Addiction Policy held a convening in Washington DC to discuss the state of the opioid settlements – including highlighting several of these innovations.   

Speakers included: 

  • Elizabeth Auch, the Countryside Public Health Administrator for Countryside Public Health in Western Minnesota; 
  • Dalton Barrett, the Opioid Settlement Coordinator for Edgecombe County, a rural, predominantly minority community in Eastern North Carolina; 
  • Tracie Gardner, Executive Director of the National Black Harm Reduction Network and former Senior Vice President of Policy Advocacy at the Legal Action Center; and 
  • Alyssa Kitlas, the Opioid Settlement Program Manager for Wake County, North Carolina. 

The event was moderated by Aneri Pattani, senior correspondent at KFF health news, and closing remarks were provided by Regina LaBelle, distinguished scholar and director of the Center on Addiction Policy at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University Law Center.

A full recording of the event is available to view below!  

Abigail Winiker, PhD, MSPH, is an Assistant Scientist in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Program Director for the Bloomberg Overdose Prevention Initiative. Her work and training in harm reduction and health education inform her public health practice, and she strives to conduct research with direct translational implications to improve outcomes for at-risk populations.