There is still what to many West Virginians is an unfathomable amount of money to be spent out of the money entrusted to the West Virginia First Foundation. Nearly $40 million has already been handed out in grants. Now the foundation is planning to spend another $1.5 million to figure out what to do with what’s left.

West Virginia University’s Health Affairs Institute, in partnership with the Institute for Policy Research and Public Affairs, and Data Drive WV, has been asked to spend the next year-and-a-half developing a better picture of needs, opportunities and the gaps that must be filled as the foundation’s effort moves forward.

“This is a critical investment in carrying out what WVFF was created to do, as our founding documents specifically call for statewide coordination that helps connect resources, information, and systems of care across West Virginia,” said Jonathan Board, the foundation’s executive director. “As WVFF continues to scale its impact, having a shared, data-driven understanding of where needs are greatest, where resources already exist, and where gaps remain will help inform future decisions. The WVU team brings both the technical expertise and statewide perspective needed to support that effort.”

That team will be asked to establish a common metric to measure “burden of addiction” at local and state levels, map funding and service availability, identify “critical gaps in prevention and treatment services,” create a public dashboard for transparency and data accessibility, define a standardized “health return on investment for addiction-related services,” and participate in development of a “statewide interoperable network.”

Rebecca Gillam, senior research scientist and portfolio director at WVU Health Affairs Institute, said the assessment “will provide practical tools to support smarter investments and stronger outcomes in addressing the burden of substance use disorder across the state.”

Using hard data to provide practical tools to support smarter investments and stronger outcomes for West Virginians seems as though perhaps it should have been step one. But, there is a case to be made for quickly getting some money into the hands of those already doing their best in this fight, too.

Now that there IS a good team in place to tackle a needs assessment — everything needs a name, and this project is West Virginia Wayfinder — let us hope that team is unflinching in its search for the means to end this plague, for good.