In its 2025 annual report, released in late April, the Washtenaw County Health Department announced a promising decline in deaths from opioid overdoses, firearms, and suicides in 2024. Firearm deaths continued to drop in 2025, and preliminary data show a similar trend for opioid overdoses and suicides.
With all three issues nationally recognized as public health crises, why has Washtenaw County been so successful? Beth Ann Hamilton, communications coordinator for WCHD, says the answer isn’t as simple as a single policy (or department—there are several local organizations dedicated to these three causes).
“As a local health department, our primary role in each of these spaces is data surveillance, so we track these things, we look at the trends, we report them out,” Hamilton says. “And I think because we all have a science perspective, it’s really difficult for us to say definitively, like, ‘And this is why.’”
To address opioid overdoses, WCHD offers a free Narcan vending machine and holds regular community events to distribute lifesaving tools, such as Narcan and test strips for fentanyl and xylazine.
“I remember going out to events in like 2021, and when we would have Narcan, people would be like, ‘What is this? How do you use this? I’ve never heard of this,’” Hamilton says. These days, “that doesn’t happen as often. People come up, and they’re like, ‘Oh, I have this.’”
WCHD also manages a $16.3 million opioid settlement fund distributed over eighteen years; the money is earmarked for local prevention, harm reduction, and treatment efforts, including $2.25 million in grants awarded to local organizations.
To prevent firearm injuries,WCHD works closely with the sheriff’s office through its Community Violence Intervention initiative. The two departments analyze local firearm data to identify trends and opportunities for intervention, and collaborate on the WeLIVE program, which supports people impacted by gun violence. WCHD also provides free gun locks.
To support mental health, WCHD in 2024 revamped the #wishyouknew youth mental health campaign that it launched in 2019. The change came after community critiques of the previous messaging, according to Susan Ringler-Cerniglia, program administrator at WCHD.
The recent trends are encouraging, but WCHD is not taking its foot off the gas. If anything, health officials say, the successes demonstrate the importance of continuing such local, community-centered public health efforts.
“None of these are issues that have been solved,” Hamilton says. “This is encouraging news for each of these areas, but it also just emphasizes why this work matters, that it can save lives, and that it needs to keep happening.”