In 2023, we were able to make progress on almost all of our CHIPs. The Hope Exchange has been constantly growing and combatting substance abuse disorders in Martin County. After receiving the Vital Strategies grant, we were able to increase the capacity of our program by purchasing harm reduction stands to place around the county. Those will go into effect soon. Data was input in Scorecard by fiscal year, but in the full-year of 2023, we distributed 14,605 syringes and 3,745 were returned. There were 8 reported overdose reversals using naloxone provided by our program and we distributed 270 naloxone kits. Of these naloxone kits, 248 were nasal sprays and 22 were intramuscular kits. We enrolled 17 new participants and saw 394 participants throughout the year. 

Our tobacco cessation began in 2023 after our tobacco cessation coordinator completed Duke-UNC Tobacco Treatment Specialist training. The first patient was seen in June and participation increased in October and November. Providers in the health department made constant referrals to our coordinator for cessation counseling, but a lot of these referrals no-showed for their appointments or decided not to schedule. Luckily, October and November was an open enrollment period for county employees, so they utilized our services to receive discounted insurance prices for the year. We also saw an up-tick in interest from the school system at the end of the year to provide the InDepth program to students caught vaping at school. Bear Grass Charter School and Riverside Middle School both had several students that were seen in October and November for the 4-session curriculum. The Advancing Equity grant we used to provide healthy foods and policy changes to food pantries ended at the end of fiscal year 2022-2023. We were able to provide healthy food to 7 different food pantries before the conclusion of the grant cycle. The free exercise access and cancer coalition were not able to come into fruition due to priority being given to other CHIPs. In the future, we hope to develop a regional cancer coalition to address the burden in the area.

Lastly, there was a vast amount of information spread about community resources throughout the year. The MTW Facebook page was utilized to post flyers, trainings, and upcoming events for community agencies. Although a new resource directory was not created this year, we refer to the resources listed at the end of the 2021 CHA, as well as a resource directory developed by our care managers that they continuously update with new contact information. 

According to the Robert Wood Johnson County Health Rankings, Martin County is ranked at #87 out of 100 counties in North Carolina. The leading cause of death for individuals under age 75 is heart disease. 

Variant strains of COVID-19 still seem endemic to the county as we continue to vaccinate our community. In addition, there has been a rise in RSV. 

Tobacco cessation counseling has been put on pause until the Tobacco Cessation Coordinator can complete her training and get the program up and running. 

Free exercise access initiatives  have been paused until we can gather enough information to post about the free public walkways in the county.

Access to healthy food in food pantries has been discontinued because we lost funding from the Advancing Equity grant to carry out this strategy.

New program: We received a 3-year $70,000 per year fund matching grant from Vital Strategies to help in our substance abuse efforts. With this money, we expanded the Hope Exchange SSP program into Washington and Tyrrell counties. In addition to our usual opioid and efforts, including fentanyl education, we also spread information on xylazine as a newly rising safety concern for drug users.