Northeast Ohio Tri-County Prevention Infrastructure

The College of Public Health at Kent State University received a 5-year, $1.5 million grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to develop and implement a real time drug use detection system to inform drug prevention efforts in Portage, Geauga and Lake counties in Ohio. The Northeast Ohio Tri-County Prevention Infrastructure (TCPI) project is a collaboration between Dr. Deric Kenne, Associate Director of the Division of Mental Health and Substance Use in the Center for Public Policy and Health, and his team and Dr. Ruoming Jin and his team in the Department of Computer Science. The system will integrate online social media and offline geospatial data, and will incorporate deep learning, natural language processing, and data mining to create a current and ongoing assessment of substance use in each county. The innovative approach to drug use detection and prevention will not only be able to focus prevention efforts but will assist community agencies in better utilizing often limited resources.

The TCPI project will work to prevent the onset and reduce the progression of alcohol and other drug use in youth ages 9 to 20 in Geauga, Lake, and Portage counties. Through the creation and utilization of an innovative Big Data Analytic (BDA) system, TCPI will be able to provide comprehensive community assessment data and monitor substance use to identify potential areas of need. Over time, it is anticipated that the system will be able to predict substance abuse trends and issues with high accuracy using natural language processing models and machine learning. While substance use monitoring using data from social media and public forums has been demonstrated through academic prototypes, TCPI intends to expand the operational capability of this methodology to better understand community-level substance use behavior and monitor trends in real-time. 

COMMUNITY PARTNERS

Geauga County Board of Mental Health and Recovery Services

Geauga Public Health

Lake County Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services Board

Lake County General Health District

The Mental Health and Recovery Board of Portage County

Portage County Combined General Health District

Prevention Action Alliance