Choctaw Nation Found a Better Way to Deliver Harm Reduction. It's Working. - Native News Online
The Choctaw Nation drives were first launched in 2020, born from community feedback. Lacey Callahan, grants operation manager for the behavioral health center, explains that their original approach — hour-long formal presentations — wasn’t working. “What we heard from our community is that (the presentations) did not feel safe,” Callahan said. “What felt safer to them was to discreetly come through on their terms, when it was convenient for them, receive a smaller training just on how to use it, and not have law enforcement present.” The tribe now strategically places these drives based on precise data analysis. Mason Emert, an epidemiologist with the Choctaw public-health department, studies statewide overdose information collected in a federally developed program called the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program (ODMAP), where users enter overdose data into a cross-jurisdictional database.
