Local Health Department Partnerships to Address Opioid Use and Overdose Prevention

Association Between Interorganizational Collaboration in Opioid Response and Treatment Capacity for Opioid Use Disorder in Counties of Five States: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…19 However, the cross-jurisdictional and cross-sector scale and complexity of the opioid epidemic hinder any government or organization from adequately addressing the problem alone. 20,21 LHDs involved in opioid response, either directly themselves or indirectly through service providers, often collaborate with governmental and nongovernmental partners to address opioid use and overdose. 19,21 This study refers to this behavior generally as interorganizational collaboration, defined as "the pooling of appreciations and/or tangible resources, eg, information, money, labor, etc., by two or more stakeholders, to solve a set of problems which neither can solve individually."…”

“…19 However, the cross-jurisdictional and cross-sector scale and complexity of the opioid epidemic hinder any government or organization from adequately addressing the problem alone. 20,21 LHDs involved in opioid response, either directly themselves or indirectly through service providers, often collaborate with governmental and nongovernmental partners to address opioid use and overdose. 19,21 This study refers to this behavior generally as interorganizational collaboration, defined as “the pooling of appreciations and/or tangible resources, eg, information, money, labor, etc., by two or more stakeholders, to solve a set of problems which neither can solve individually.” 22 The mechanisms of such collaboration are controlled not by markets or hierarchies but rather by “sets of negotiations that are demanded by the lack of predefined institutional roles that accompany market- and authority-based relationships.” 23 Such collaboration includes 2 distinct yet complementary facets: cooperation and coordination.…”

“…20,21 LHDs involved in opioid response, either directly themselves or indirectly through service providers, often collaborate with governmental and nongovernmental partners to address opioid use and overdose. 19,21 This study refers to this behavior generally as interorganizational collaboration, defined as “the pooling of appreciations and/or tangible resources, eg, information, money, labor, etc., by two or more stakeholders, to solve a set of problems which neither can solve individually.” 22 The mechanisms of such collaboration are controlled not by markets or hierarchies but rather by “sets of negotiations that are demanded by the lack of predefined institutional roles that accompany market- and authority-based relationships.” 23 Such collaboration includes 2 distinct yet complementary facets: cooperation and coordination. 24 Interorganizational cooperation is defined as “joint pursuit of agreed-on goal(s) in a manner corresponding to a shared understanding about contributions and payoffs.” 24 Its success or failure is tied to the interests and incentives of actors and their willingness to give up something they have for something they want from a collaboration, the details of which are often delineated in formal (eg, written) or informal (eg, verbal) agreements.…”

“…To date, no studies of which the authors are aware have examined this relationship. Accordingly, this study adds to the broader understanding of strategies used in community opioid response, [17][18][19][20][21] particularly in rural areas. [31][32][33] That local government engagement in collaboration related to greater capacity to provide methadone but not buprenorphine 46 Public administration research has long studied "publicness" or "a characteristic of an organization which reflects the extent the organization is influenced by political authority" that will, in turn, partly determine the extent to which public values are realized.…”

“…g SAR models(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28) include a spatial lag parameter, ρ , for the dependent variable. ***P < .01, **P < .05, *P < .10.…”