2025 WA GIS Conference

The opioid epidemic continues to be a great challenge within the field of public health. To facilitate an effective, unified response, that spans across many organizations that provide different services related to the opioid response and prevention, Kitsap Public Health District (KPHD) has undertaken conducting a network analysis. By implementing a network analysis, such an understanding can enhance a community’s capacity to combine diverse knowledge and skills to come up with effective solutions to complex problems… be responsive to community needs, arrive at consensus across community divisions, organize collective tasks, and coordinate services efficiently (Provan et al. 2005, p. 604). KPHD plays a supportive role to unite organizations involved in the opioid response through quarterly gatherings. With a supportive response to facilitate a network analysis in the initial meeting, KPHD had begun to develop and implement a data collection tool. This tool, based loosely from the data collection tool used in Proven et al. (2005), has allowed KPHD to obtain information on an organization’s location, services offered, as well as all other organizations that are within that organization’s network. This data is entered into Excel spreadsheets that are linked into ArcGIS that allows the usage of geoprocessing tools that generate organizational point and connection line layers on a map. This network analysis map has provided a new way to visualize relationships at a quick glance, as well as helping strained and siloed organizations who are parts of a whole system better know who else is part of their system and gives them a tool to aid in recognizing the relationships they have and in forming new ones. This network map tool has an additional potential in helping organizations show their affiliation within the network to further leverage themselves in grant funding opportunities.

Provan, K. G., Veazie, M. A., Staten, L. K., & Teufel-Shone, N. I. (2005). The Use of Network Analysis to Strengthen Community Partnerships. Public Administration Review, 65(5), 603–613. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3542526