Austin Public Health updates its opioid overdose dashboard. What the council has funded, and the one no vote

Austin Public Health has launched an updated Opioid Overdose Dashboard with overdose data and trends for Austin and Travis County, the department announced Nov. 2.

For residents, the dashboard is the most direct way to see how often overdoses are happening, where emergency rooms are seeing them, and how much naloxone, the overdose-reversal drug, is reaching the community.

What the dashboard shows

According to the release, it tracks four things:

• fatal opioid overdoses;
• nonfatal opioid overdoses;
• nonfatal overdose emergency room visits and hospitalizations; and
• naloxone distribution by agency.

The data come from Austin-Travis County EMS, the Travis County Medical Examiner, Travis County Health and Human Services, the Texas Syndromic Surveillance System, the Texas Department of State Health Services and the CDC's WONDER database. The release itself does not include figures.

"Our updated dashboard highlights the continued public health threat posed by opioid overdoses in our community," said Dr. Desmar Walkes, the Austin-Travis County health authority. Public Health Director Adrienne Sturrup said sharing the data helps the city see where needs exist and connect people with support earlier. The release points residents to one-dose.org for information on recognizing and preventing overdoses.

Background

The dashboard grew out of a council resolution from June 2022, No. 20220616-053, which had the department consult partners and other city departments before building it, the release says. The first version launched in 2023.

Last week, in a memo covered in our Oct. 28 story, health officials told the council that opioid overdose deaths in Travis County fell about 35% in 2024 from 2023, but that EMS still sees high numbers of drug poisonings, and they warned about concentrated kratom products.

What our records add

Settlement money. At the July 22 budget meeting, a deputy director of Austin Public Health said the city's opioid settlement allocations had totaled about $3.6 million. Contracts paid from that money include harm reduction outreach and peer recovery services.

The September renewal was not unanimous. On Sept. 24 the council approved a $600,000 renewal of its agreement with the Texas Harm Reduction Alliance for outreach, harm reduction education and peer recovery support, paid from opioid settlement funds. It passed 10-1 on consent. Mayor Kirk Watson voted no on that item along with a group of other social service contract extensions on the agenda.

Watson said his vote was "not about the need for social services" or the providers, but about missing information. He said a resolution he had sponsored directed staff to bring back analysis and recommendations, including on contract extensions, before Oct. 1, and that "what I'm missing right now is enough information" about the extensions to fully support them. He suggested shorter extensions might have been one remedy.

Our Oct. 28 story said earlier harm reduction contracts passed without a no vote, which is correct; the September renewal was the exception.

Earlier votes. The council extended Communities for Recovery's peer counseling agreement 10-0 in March and amended UT Austin's clinician training agreement 11-0 in December 2025, both on consent.

The bigger debate. Watson's concerns are part of a wider review of how the city buys social services. Our Oct. 29 story covers the proposed "reset," and the council's Public Health Committee takes up social services strategy on Nov. 4.

What's next

• Nov. 4, 10 a.m.: Public Health Committee, chaired by Council Member Vanessa Fuentes, discusses social services strategy, including grants versus contracts and pay for performance.
• The DEA: A federal decision on scheduling 7-OH, the kratom-linked compound, is still pending, according to the health department's October memo.
• Help: The Texas Poison Center Network is at 1-800-222-1222 for anyone with a bad reaction to a drug or supplement.