On Wednesday, local advocates, government officials and behavioral health workers gathered at the 2025 Statewide Community Overdose Engagement Summit to evaluate strategies for combating overdoses and expanding access to recovery resources.
In its first meeting since 2018, the summit reflected on systemic factors fueling regional overdoses, highlighting the effects of racial inequities and generational trauma on substance-use, in particular.
Data from PreventOverdoseRI shows that the number of overdose-related deaths peaked at 436 in 2022, with a drastic increase between 2020 and 2021. In 2024, there were 192 confirmed overdose-related deaths, with an additional 87 unconfirmed.
Alexander Walley, a professor of medicine at the Boston University School of Medicine and the medical director of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s Opioid Overdose, delivered a detailed presentation about the realities of opioid overdoses unfolding in New England and the rest of the country.
The stigma surrounding drug use is “linked to the structural disparities that we have in our country and many areas of health,” Walley said.
He also described the emergence of a “fourth wave” in the surge of overdose deaths nationwide, caused by fentanyl contamination in stimulants like cocaine and methamphetamines. “There is no one solution,” Walley stressed. “We need to continue to evolve and figure out and adapt and try new things.”
In a discussion with Rick Brooks, the director of Healthcare Workforce Transformation at the state’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services, several addiction and recovery workers touched on the barriers — like lower wages or education requirements — contributing to workforce shortages in their industries.
Brooks highlighted Rhode Island’s Ladders to Licensure initiative, a collaborative learning program aimed at encouraging employees in “paraprofessional roles to pursue higher education and health professional licensure,” according to the website.
Despite the various obstacles, community leaders and activists attending the summit expressed resolve in their pursuit for change.
“I think that the community is wonderful because we hold each other up,” Michelle McKenzie, the co-founder and director of Preventing Overdose and Naloxone Intervention, said in an interview with The Herald.
Founded in 2006, PONI began as part of a pilot program and distributed naloxone, a rapid-acting medicine that reverses opioid overdoses. The organization also provides harm prevention supplies, like fentanyl test strips and syringes.
George O’Toole, the acting director of Recovery Support Services at East Bay Community Action Program, operates recovery centers in various locations in the state.
“I started using drugs when I was eight years old,” O’Toole shared in an interview with The Herald. “I didn’t get sober until I was in my early 40s.”
Since his recovery, O’Toole has worked to provide a variety of outreach programs that support those seeking recovery. “We (have got to) keep doing what we do, and as long as we keep doing it, we (will) make a difference,” O’Toole said.
Zachariah Kenyon, the chief of emergency medical services for the Providence Fire Department, said the city is working to increase distribution of naloxone.
“We’re trying to reach a community in as many ways as possible,” Kenyon explained. “The goal is to give somebody a second chance.”
While he acknowledges the significant progress made, Kenyon emphasized the need for further outreach in neighboring communities. “How do we get other people to know that they have the resources?”
Zach Robel is a Senior Staff Writer from Corvallis, Oregon, studying economics and environmental studies at Brown.
