This year’s International Overdose Awareness Day has seen the movement continue despite the disruptive effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report explores the outcomes, impact, and success of IOAD, studies the events and their attendees, and examines how COVID-19 impacted IOAD and how event organisers and participants responded. It also tells the stories of some of those who chose to be involved. The findings in the Partners’ Report are based principally on data gathered from the IOAD 2020 Partners’ Survey, which had 204 respondents. This is a global sample representative of this year’s 602 registered events in 37 countries. The Survey was created and shared with our IOAD Partners on the 15th of September and closed on the 8th of October. Many of the respondents noted that COVID-19 had made it difficult to hold physical events because of restrictions in their areas. In anticipation of disruptions to physical events, Penington Institute, the conveners of the International Overdose Awareness Day campaign, produced a Digital Event Guide, Social Media Kit, and other digital advocacy resources. This support enabled the digital campaign to go from strength to strength. From the beginning of July to the end of September, there was a more than 25 per cent increase in visits to the International Overdose Awareness Day website compared to the same time in 2019. Visitors over this time downloaded IOAD resources to help with their event planning – such as posters, fact sheets, the digital event guide and social media kit – more than 87,000 times. This is an increase of approximately 12,000 on the resource downloads in 2019.

At the time of writing, the International Overdose Awareness Day Facebook page has more than 43,300 subscribers, 4,900 Twitter followers, and 3,150 Instagram followers. The recently launched Overdose Tribute page, where people can submit photos and tributes to their lost loved ones, has more than 700 followers. We are deeply grateful to the 204 people who took the time to share their honest thoughts with us. Those experiences and insights will help to improve the quality, reach and impact of the campaign in future. The Report ends with a reflection on the 2020 campaign and a look ahead to International Overdose Awareness Day 2021, which will mark 20 years since the event began.