Committee approves $111,915 for overdose-prevention work; health director outlines data limits, needle-box pilot idea

The Manchester Board of Mayor and Aldermen's Committee on Community Improvement voted to approve an amending resolution transferring $111,915 for CIP 211325, designated for overdose-prevention funding.

Public Health Director Anna Thomas told the committee the city's local numbers are compiled primarily from American Medical Response calls and from police and fire reports, and that the data represent events recorded by first responders rather than every instance of an overdose in the community. "Keep in mind, these are only people who end up in the first responder system, so there's a lot of community overdosing happening, people self administering Narcan, or others administering Narcan, that never get counted in these numbers," Thomas said.

Thomas and aldermen discussed how the locally compiled figures differ from finalized…