Trending
Knowledge is power. In fact, it can be a powerful weapon in a fight, and West Virginia continues to fight the substance-use plague that has been destroying families and killing people for many years.
To further support that fight, the West Virginia First Foundation has announced a partnership with West Virginia University, Marshall University, West Virginia Wesleyan College, the University of Charleston, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Notre Dame to identify statewide needs, measure outcomes, evaluate grant applications and then figure out how to invest resources in the most effective solutions.
In case you're wondering what Notre Dame and Johns Hopkins have to do with this, they will be providing guidance on evidence-based grantmaking and outcomes measurement, and conducting independent evaluations to support accountability in funding decisions. In other words, they'll help make sure all those millions upon millions of dollars still available to be spent on the issue actually go toward winning the fight.
"We need data, we need the information that comes from deep research to tell us not only from a dollar to a success, but what that travel is and where the success lies every step of the way," Foundation Executive Director Jonathan Board said during the announcement of the partnership, according to WVMetroNews.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, West Virginia had the highest drug overdose death rate in the country in 2024 (the most recent year for which full data is available), at 48.9 deaths per 100,000 total population. Eight hundred twenty-one people died of drug overdoses that year.
Most analysts agree the substance abuse crisis began here more than a quarter century ago. Yet it is still killing Mountain State residents at a higher rate than anywhere else in the country. Money has been rolling in for years. (Then-Attorney General Darrell McGraw won $10 million in a settlement with opioid manufacturer Purdue Pharma back in 2004, according to a WVU report; by the end of Gov. Patrick Morrisey's tenure as attorney general, the totals were over $1 billion). The West Virginia First Foundation was established more than three years ago.
Here's hoping these partnerships will be the step that produces solutions that, after so much time, put all that money toward helping West Virginians avoid addiction in the first place, or recover and STAY sober; and set the state on the path to being free of this monster.