About the Rural Community Toolbox

This toolbox is intended to serve as a repository for resources from across the federal government to help support rural communities in their efforts to address the impacts of substance use, misuse, and overdose on individuals, families, and entire communities.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of Justice Programs’ (OJP) Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) has partnered with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to ensure rural communities are supported across behavioral health, public health, public safety, and other key systems and sectors to address the multiple facets of the substance misuse, opioid, and overdose crises.

This website was initially launched in June 2020. It built upon the work developed by the 2018 Rural Opioid Federal Interagency Working Group, and the resulting Rural Community Action Guide and Rural Community Action Guide: Promising Practices.

Each community has its own unique challenges beyond those generally applicable to rural communities. This website serves as a guide to federal resources that can be used to address the challenges and impacts of substance use and misuse in your community. It offers tools to empower rural communities to assess the causes and impact of substance use disorder (SUD) and information to find federal programs to help them build strong, healthy, rural communities.

This website is operated by the University of North Dakota Center for Rural Health. If you have any questions or feedback about the site, please contact us.