17 • Thread 1. Executing strategies for reducing opioid use disorder must be a multidisciplinary effort. Because there are numerous components that involve multiple disciplines to implement, it is essential that there be a coordinated and integrated effort involving public safety, health care providers, pharmacists, social services, public health and education officials. Each discipline has a contribution to make in creating and applying the evidence-based findings that will make a difference in making progress against this epidemic. Peer specialists who serve as advisors and mentors are also an important part of the team approach to addressing the opioid problem. • Thread 2. Information-sharing across jurisdictions and disciplines is essential. Whether for collaborative treatment related to an individual or for population health for a community, the capabilities to share data, information and knowledge among the relevant stakeholders is a common theme of every identified strategy and program. Multidisciplinary Collaboration Requirements When policy-makers and practitioners study the origins and advancements of the opioid crisis, it becomes immediately clear that reducing its rate of growth requires efforts involving education, social work with families, public safety, emergency medical services, courts, health care professionals, public health officials and workers, probation officers, pharmacists and other elements of government at all levels. Most importantly, stakeholders in the effort must include the voices of patients and the general public, whose support for such programs is essential. Peer specialists with first- hand experience in overcoming an opioid use disorder are also key players on the team. A truly collaborative effort by these participating disciplines and organizations is essential to mounting a successful prevention program. Each discipline must see itself in the program and undertake the work it can contribute to successful efforts, working closely with other collaborators to achieve mutually beneficial results. The Lazarus Project in North Carolina offers advice based on its success in building a coalition of stakeholders at the local level to confront the crisis.19 Closely tied to the conclusion that a collaborative approach is indispensable is the recognition that, for such an effort to succeed, there must be a deep and broad sharing of information about the individuals endangered by the epidemic, with sufficient detail to make a synergistic approach work. Put another way, a lack of information-sharing is a reason such efforts fail. Communities formed in many environments throughout the country have attested to this fundamental reality. Many obstacles must be overcome to make information-sharing a positive contributor to dealing with the prevention of opioid use disorders. Individual disciplines have long rejected calls for exchanging data with other disciplines on the grounds of protecting privacy and civil liberties, and various federal and state statutes and regulations have contributed to this impasse. Information is also often viewed as a key to individual or organizational power, and sharing it is seen as a danger to personal or organizational control. Still, it is clear that for a community of interest to collaborate on a prevention effort, more information is vital to enable collaboration and joint problem-solving activities