The National Strategic Planning and Analysis Research Center (NSPARC) at Mississippi State University has received a grant to help combat a major problem in Mississippi and across the country.
The center has received a $200,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Health Services Administration, which will be used to create a plan to leverage data on the opioid crisis in 67 rural counties in Mississippi and two counties containing eligible census tracts. With this project, NSPARC is part of a consortium of agencies statewide with interests in ending the opioid crisis. Other agencies involved include the Mississippi Board of Pharmacy, Mississippi Department of Human Services, Mississippi Public Health Institute and Mississippi Department of Employment Security.
“The impact of opioids in Mississippi is thoroughly severe, and the purpose of this grant is to develop a plan to address the opioid crisis,” said NSPARC postdoctoral research associate Michael Spanbauer. “We’re going to be working with other institutions across the state of Mississippi to address his issue.”
Spanbauer said NSPARC’s role will be to develop a plan for a data clearing house on the opioid crisis in Mississippi, bringing together data on the problem from several sources. The data would improve the state’s efforts at prevention, outreach, treatment, enforcement and research.
“One of the existing structures that we’re going to be using is the SLDS system, the State Longitudinal Data System,” Spanbauer said. “We’re going to be using some of the existing structures there as far as developing plans for additional data services.
Spanbauer said the grant marked NSPARC’s first time working with a grant from the Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA). He said the agency currently had a very
large budget.
“The purpose is to develop the strategic plan to create the relationship between Mississippi State University and these other departments across Mississippi for these bonds, and then develop the strategic plan and the sustainability plan,” Spanbauer said.
He said NSPARC hoped to receive a larger grant from the organization based on the infrastructure they create.
Establishment of the data clearing house is a major component of the Governor’s Opioid and Heroin Study Task Force final report released in 2017 as part of Gov. Phil Bryant’s Executive Order 1388.