Cuyahoga County Overdose Fatality Review

Under the leadership of Dr. Thomas Gilson, the Cuyahoga County Overdose Fatality Review (CCOFR) is co-coordinated between the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office and the Cuyahoga County Board of Health. Beginning in 2012, the CCOFR reviewed all fatal overdoses occurring in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. However, due to the increase in drug-overdose fatalities, a transition was made in 2019 to employ a selective overdose fatality review which examines exemplar cases.

Many different agencies comprise the CCOFR, including law enforcement, local hospitals, mental health agencies and public health. The goal is to use in-depth, data-driven case reviews of system touch points to facilitate the implementation of public health intervention and policy recommendations in order to reduce future fatalities.

The CCOFR respects and honors the lives of the individuals involved in case reviews and strives to learn from those who lost their lives to overdose.

In November 2021, the CCOFR was awarded the Ohio Department of Health’s Ohio Injury Prevention Partnerships’ Promising Practice Award.

Recommendations and Reports

The main goal of CCOFR and its partners is to create recommendations that will prevent future deaths. We encourage other community stakeholders utilize this information to inform needs and fill gaps.

The most current recommendations and reports can be found here.

Cuyahoga County Overdose Data Dashboard
Data dashboard

Linkage to Care Resources