HIA Program

The Tennessee Department of Health launched the High Impact Areas (HIA) Program within the Overdose Response Coordination Office (ORCO) to address the burden of SUD in a holistic way. As the name suggests, the program targets the areas of the state most burdened by the overdose epidemic and works with communities to fund and oversee activities aimed at preventing and reducing overdoses. Currently, there are five High Impact Areas covering nine of the 13 public health jurisdictions in Tennessee.

The HIA Program partners with existing agencies and other stakeholders to achieve a more comprehensive, equitable, and locally-managed response to SUD in the state. The program oversees 27 projects covering many public health interventions across the continuum of care, from substance use screening and prevention, coordinating overdose monitoring and response efforts, to navigation to treatment and recovery services. These projects are locally owned and chosen, and managed by Substance Misuse Response Coordinators embedded in public health regions and Metros.