Catherine (Kay) Sanford, MSPH is a nationally recognized drug overdose prevention advocate and activist. She served as the state’s Injury Epidemiologist in the North Carolina Division of Public Health, identifying in 2002 the state’s incipient epidemic of fatal drug overdoses, primarily due to the misuse of prescription pain medication, and more recently, the rapidly increasing abuse of heroin and fentanyl, methamphetamines and cocaine. For 15 years she has lead and served on multiple overdose prevention task forces to design and evaluate overdose prevention and intervention strategies, design and collect more accurate overdose data, pass public health overdose prevention legislation and teach harm reduction to physicians, patients, law enforcement, criminal justice officers and inmates.