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Spokane County seeks renewed data-sharing with health district as overdose rates climb
Summary
Spokane County public-health officials requested two interlocal agreements with the Spokane Regional Health District to continue a child fatality review panel and to join a new adult overdose and suicide death review panel, while county data show overdose death rates rising through early 2025.
The Spokane County medical examiner’s office asked the Board of County Commissioners on June 24 to renew an interlocal agreement with the Spokane Regional Health District for the child fatality multidisciplinary case review panel and to begin a new interlocal agreement to participate in an adult overdose and suicide death review panel.
The request, presented by Dr. Singh of the medical examiner’s office, calls for Spokane County to provide data and record access to the health district and for a county pathologist to participate on the panels. "They are convening an adult fatality death review panel. And this is, specifically to review deaths caused by overdose and suicide and withdrawal," Singh said during the briefing.
Why it matters: county leaders said the data-sharing and review panels are intended to identify preventable factors and reduce deaths. The same presentation included Washington Department of Health-coded death-certificate data showing Spokane County’s overdose death rates continuing to trend upward through the first quarter of 2025, while the statewide rate has flattened or declined.
The county’s slides, prepared using state death-certificate coding, showed higher per-100,000 rates in Spokane County than in Eastern Washington and the state for overall overdoses and for particular drug categories, including opioids, synthetic opioids (primarily fentanyl), methamphetamine-related deaths and cocaine-involved deaths. Singh noted the state’s figures are derived from death-certificate coding (ICD external-cause codes such as X40–X44) and that for county–to–state comparisons the county must rely on the Department of Health’s extraction and coding of those records.
Discussion and next steps: commissioners thanked staff for the data and asked for continued quarterly updates. No formal vote was recorded during the briefing on the two interlocal agreements; county staff asked the board for approval to renew and to enter the agreements and to have county staff participate on the panels. The presentation emphasized that the review panels depend on timely access to records and cooperation between the county coroner/medical examiner and the regional health district.
Community context: commissioners said they want recurring, timely reporting so the county can see trends month-to-month and act where possible. The presentation noted Eastern Washington was defined for the slide set as Adams, Asotin, Ferry, Garfield, Lincoln, Pend Oreille, Spokane, Stevens and Whitman counties.
Ending: Dr. Singh and commissioners agreed the information is essential to guiding local efforts, and the county plans further outreach and periodic updates to the board as the agreements and panels move forward.
