EDC to Lead SAMHSA’s New National Substance Misuse Prevention Center

Creating Healthy Environments Announcements Oct 31, 2022
EDC to Lead SAMHSA’s New National Substance Misuse Prevention Center

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The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has awarded EDC the Strategic Prevention Technical Assistance Center (SPTAC), a five-year $32 million contract to prevent substance misuse in the United States.

Through EDC’s leadership, SPTAC experts will provide high-quality training and technical assistance to SAMHSA’s prevention grantees across the country, improving their workforce knowledge and skills to successfully implement SAMHSA’s Strategic Prevention Framework.

Substance misuse remains a leading cause of preventable death in the United States, costing over $500 billion each year. The 2020 National Survey on Drug Use and Health states that 40.3 million people aged 12 and older had a substance use disorder in the past year. During that same time span, 21.4 percent of people aged 12 or older used illicit drugs.

“SPTAC will be the nation’s foremost vehicle for addressing states’ and communities’ most pressing substance misuse and behavioral health needs,” said Chelsey Goddard, EDC vice president and SPTAC project director.  Through SPTAC, we will build the capacity of SAMHSA’s prevention grantees to create and sustain healthy communities.”

SPTAC continues EDC’s decades of partnering with SAMHSA to address substance misuse. This partnership includes EDC’s eight years of leading SAMHSA’s Center for the Application of Prevention Technologies (CAPT), which supported tens of thousands of substance misuse prevention and behavioral health providers in the United States.

EDC’s five regional teams will work across the 10 Health and Human Services regions to assist SAMHSA grantees to:

  •  Assess the substance misuse prevention needs of populations, with a focus on underage alcohol and cannabis use and prescription drug misuse
  • Develop strategic plans that link identified prevention risk factors to clear and measurable outcomes
  • Implement effective programs, practices, and policies, including universal, selective, and indicated prevention strategies
  • Evaluate the effectiveness of prevention efforts implemented

EDC’s partners on SPTAC include Carnevale Associates, LLC; HeadSpin Software; Synergy Enterprises; University of Oklahoma—Southwest Prevention Center; and University of Nevada-Reno, Center for the Application of Substance Abuse Technologies.

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