OCHD leads the county’s Overdose Fatality Review (OFR) Team alongside OMH, numerous county, city, and healthcare partners. The OFR Team meets quarterly every year to review substance use overdose deaths in Onslow County to determine what services individuals accessed prior to their death. Each meeting, three cases are reviewed. A death review (also referred to as a “case review”) examines a decedent’s life cycle in terms of drug use history, comorbidity, major health events, social-emotional trauma (including adverse childhood experiences), encounters with law enforcement and criminal justice system, treatment history, and other factors including local conditions to facilitate a deeper understanding of the missed opportunities for prevention and intervention that may have prevented an overdose death. Blending input from public health, public safety, providers, and the community, the OFR Team seeks to identify trends in substance use overdose deaths and make recommendations on how to prevent future overdose deaths.  

Stakeholders and people in Onslow County affected by substance abuse.

The OFR Team reviews and identifies trends in substance use overdose deaths. Identification of trends allows the OFR team to make recommendations to other community organizations serving people seeking services and to allow for targeted messaging to at-risk individuals and groups.  

• Upon completing case reviews during the January 2025 Overdose Fatality Review (OFR) Team meeting, the group established different recommendations to implement moving forward. The recommendations consisted of the need to increase awareness of the resources available in Onslow County (as it relates to the Social Determinants of Health), and the need to increase awareness of the Good Samaritan Law. A business card was created containing a link to the Onslow County Community Resource Guide which serves as a directory for information on community health resources within the County, a description of the Good Samaritan Law, signs and symptoms of an overdose, and instructions on how to operate Narcan. The business cards will be distributed by different agency representatives who serve on the OFR Team to community members identified as high-risk, and/or in need of services. Lastly, social media posts will be created periodically by the Onslow County Health Department to educate viewers on the Good Samaritan Law and availability of the Onslow County Community Resource Guide. Partner agencies on the OFR Team will then repost the information on their social media pages to increase the number of users who have viewed the content.