In a windowed room above the streets of Seattle, Washington, staff from the mayor’s office and the King County Medical Examiner’s Office study a map of the city streets. Colored dots are scattered alone or in clusters across the projection–each representing a life impacted by drug overdose.
The map is part of a training on the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program–ODMAP for short. Developed to combat overdoses across the United States, the ODMAP platform helps public health and public safety professionals quickly gather and integrate overdose data to decrease overdoses, and save lives.
“With ODMAP, first responders like fire, EMS, police departments, as well as public health agencies and medical examiners officers can input and access local overdose data,” said Amanda Dutt, a CDC Foundation public health analyst in Washington State. “So with that we have a more complete picture of what overdoses look like in the area in near real-time.”
Amanda Dutt, a CDC Foundation public health analyst, conducts an ODMAP training for staff of the mayor's office and the King County Medical Examiner's office at the HIDTA office in Seattle, Washington.
Washington State has one of the highest drug overdose rates in the United States, many of them occuring here in the city of Seattle.
Mike Mizer, ORS drug intelligence officer, trains ODMAP users on the features of the platform.
The ODMAP platform is developed and maintained by Washington/Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), one of 33 HIDTA’s nationwide supporting innovative strategies and helping communities in areas of high drug activity reduce overdoses by sharing information. ODMAP is a key component of the national Overdose Response Strategy (ORS) goal of increasing data-sharing between the public health and public safety sectors.
Through the support of the CDC Foundation, the ORS pairs public health analysts with drug intelligence officers who work together to gather and share overdose data, insights and trends so states can target resources effectively.
“These teams are intended to bridge the gap between the public safety world and the public health world, because each world utilizes different data and has different ways of addressing the problem,” Dutt said. “Getting them together is really fruitful because the more we can do together, the more impact we can have.”
Partnered with Mike Mizer, ORS drug intelligence officer, the two make up one of 61 ORS teams nationwide. Washington State has one of the highest overdose rates in the United States, with Seattle, Washington’s most populous city, averaging about 17 overdoses a day as of early January 2025, according to information reported to the platform by EMS and law enforcement agencies. Faced with such a threat, coordination between all levels of public health and public safety is essential.
“It's been great working with Amanda,” said Mizer, whose career in law enforcement spanned more than 30 years. “She's willing to listen to my ideas and learn, and I've listened to her and learned. It’s two different worlds in some ways, and I think we silo ourselves, so that cooperation works well.”
Staff from the mayor's office and the King County Medical Examiners office sit in on the ODMAP training.
When overdoses occur in Seattle, first responders can input that information into the ODMAP platform, and channel resources more effectively when overdose spikes occur.
The ODMAP platform allows public health and public safety professionals to access overdase data in near real time, allowing them to share up-to-date data, insight and trends that can save lives.
Working together, the pair produce drug trend reports, drawn from data collected directly from law enforcement partners in Washington and surrounding states, state medical examiners and coroners, the Washington State Department of Health and others. Produced quarterly, these reports help officials monitor threats posed by new drugs or adulterants, increases or decreases in supply and other essential information.
“Having this timely information on how the drug supply is changing is really crucial to inform our interventions,” Dutt said.
In addition, training public health and public safety professionals on the ODMAP platform is another essential role Dutt and Mizer play. When an overdose response occurs, that data is entered into ODMAP by, for example, a police officer or paramedic responding to the call. That information is then available in nearly real-time by any member who has access to the ODMAP platform. Because its data is updated constantly, ODMAP can then provide alerts so public health and safety officials can coordinate efforts and notify the first responders, community groups, state officials or others involved in addressing the spike.
“A spike alert is when a particular area or county is experiencing a higher amount of overdoses in a 24-hour period than is normal for them,” Dutt said. “We can receive notification that an area is an overdose spike, and then, in collaboration with partners statewide, respond accordingly to slow that spike and reduce the amount of overdoses that occur.”
Though overdose deaths decreased slightly in 2024, the dangers posed by powerful synthetic opioids like fentanyl remain a significant public health threat across the United States. Combatting that threat requires that public health and public safety professionals work closely together at the state level–coordination made easier through the ODMAP platform.
“There are a lot of groups out there working on this problem,” Mizer said. “If we can help coordinate those groups, and get everyone working together at the same time, that’s the most important thing we can do.”
