The City of Dallas and Dallas County are mapping local fentanyl overdoses but are declining to publish the data.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the City joined the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program (ODMAP) in June. However, no information recorded through the program has been made available to the public.
The Dallas Morning News reported that it requested information on overdose mapping from the county, but county officials declined to share the information and opted to first consult with the Office of the Attorney General. The data in question is collected by Dallas Fire-Rescue, which tracks first responders attending to overdoses.
The Dallas County District Attorney’s Office reportedly argued that health privacy laws in the Texas Health and Safety Code exempt the information from having to be released through an open records request.
Dallas County previously published interactive online dashboards for public health emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Other public health agencies have created similar public dashboards for opioid overdoses.
However, Dallas County Health and Human Services Director Philip Huang said the county has no plans to launch a dashboard for drug overdoses in Dallas.
“There was so much discussion, just for us to get the data and to be able to report it to ODMAP. … So I don’t want to jeopardize it,” he said. “We try to make our data accessible when we can.”
The Dallas Express reached out to the City of Dallas and Dallas County for comment but did not receive a response by press time.
The DMN reported that City records center employee Nancy Gonzalez said on September 15 that the news outlet’s request fell under state law that allows an extension if a “voluminous amount of information is requested or an extensive search is necessary to identify responsive information.”
Gonzalez said the City would respond to the request on September 29.
Huang also said Dallas took an extended period to join the ODMAP over privacy concerns. He said protecting information about overdoses is important, and such data should only be available to those who “need to know,” like public health officials and first responders.
He added that the data is protected public health information and that even the City hesitated to share it with Dallas County Health and Human Services because attorneys were concerned that releasing information like the location of an overdose could violate health privacy laws.