San Francisco Police Department Narcan Deployments¶

Background¶

Narcan is the brand name for the medication naloxone, which if administered properly, reverses the effects of an opioid overdose. Since March of 2015, San Francisco Police officers have been trained to recognize life-threatening opioid overdoses and administer the intranasal Narcan--which is equipped in all SFPD patrol vehicles.

The SFPD maintains a publicly available dataset of all police response incidents. The dataset contains an indicator if an incident invovled a person suffering an overdose and an officer used Narcan. Additionally, the dataset gives the geographic position of the incident as well as the date and time. From this information, a spatial-temporal map is constructed showing instances of SFPD Narcan deployments.

Data Description¶

Data Sources¶

  • SFPD Narcan Deployments
    SFPD Narcan deployment incident information is obtained from Police Department Incident Reports: 2018 to Present. This dataset includes all police incidents, with narcan deployments indicated in a description field.
  • Drug Overdose Deaths
    Counts of deaths due to fatal drug overdoses is obtained from Preliminary Unintentional Drug Overdose Deaths. This dataset is updated by the San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) report of the preliminary count of unintentional fatal drug overdoses. Overdose deaths are determined from drug testing, death scene investigation, autopsy, medical record, and informant information. The cause of overdose is not disclosed, so non-opioid induced overdoses may be included.
  • Overdose-Related 911 Responses
    Counts of 911 responses to drug overdoses is obtained from Overdose-Related 911 Responses by Emergency Medical Services. This dataset comes from emergency medical service 911 responses reported by ambulances. The dataset is a processed subset that is filtered based on calls that only include those where EMS documented that an opioid overdose was involved and/or naloxone (Narcan) was administered. The data includes counts beginning in August 2022.

Narcan Usage Analysis¶

SFPD Narcan Deployment Spatial-Temporal Map¶

This interactive scatter map visualizes the geographic distribution and temporal evolution of cumulative SFPD Narcan deployments across San Francisco from January 2021 onwards.

Spatial Representation:

  • Each point on the map represents a unique geographic location where SFPD officers deployed Narcan
  • Point size is proportional to the cumulative number of incidents at that location (larger circles indicate more frequent Narcan usage)
  • Color intensity uses a pink color scale to represent incident frequency, with darker colors indicating higher incident counts
  • Hover text displays the exact incident count and intersection location name for each point

Temporal Animation:

  • The map features a time-series animation that shows the cumulative buildup of Narcan incidents over time
  • Each animation frame represents one month, displaying all incidents that occurred from the start date through that month
  • Play and pause controls allow users to start, stop, and control the temporal progression

SFPD Narcan Deployments vs Emergency Service Narcan Responses¶

The SFPD Incident dataset is valuable since it includes exact incident location and time. However, the SFPD usages represent only a fraction of emergy medical responses to opioid overdoses. The figure below illustrates SFPD narcan usage against all overdose related 911 responses.

Overdose Deaths Analysis¶

3870 people have died from a drug overdose in San Francisco since 2020. The figures below show the time distribution of overdose deaths. Totals per year and month are visualized as well as the ratio of overdose deaths to emergency medical responses, expressed as deaths per 100 overdose-related 911 calls.

Overdose Deaths Data:
Total overdose deaths: 3870, since January 2020