Wednesday was International Overdose Awareness Day at the University of Kentucky.

The Kentucky Injury Prevention and Research Center held an event to educate the community on the state's overdose rates and prevention resources.

We're holding Overdose Awareness Day to continue to raise awareness around opioid overdoses.

In 2023, Kentucky saw over 1900 individuals lose their lives, lose their lives to overdoses.

And so we want to continue to make sure that people are aware and aware of any resources that we also have available here.

So that's what today is about, hoping to reach out to the university community and our students.

We set up the room in a way where we have kind of different topic areas.

So when you first walk in, there's a table that's just about injury prevention in general, since that is the research category that overdoses falls under.

And so there we have general information about our research center, what we do at Kiprotich and how students can get involved.

Then we have a table that's on resources.

So we have our team that run our FIND help now K-Y Talk website, which is where individuals can go to find substance use disorder treatment.

They can find recovery housing, they can find mental health treatment, and they can also find naloxone distribution sites across the state.

So no matter where you are in the state of Kentucky, you can go to find help now what at work and find near real time availability for resources.

And then we also have a harm reduction table.

And then we also have live demonstration and training on naloxone.

We have someone from the Kentucky Department of Public Health who's doing trainings and providing naloxone kits to all of the students who come through.

So we want to continue to raise awareness and also just make sure that the people in our communities are equipped with the resources and are aware of where they can find them and where they can help others.

According to the Centers 2023 data, there has been an increase in overdoses among black Kentuckians.