If a major issue is affecting your community, chances are its impact reaches beyond your town line. That’s especially true of the opioid epidemic in Pennsylvania, where the drug overdose rate is more than twice the national average. Earlier this year, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf even issued a disaster declaration for Pennsylvania’s “heroin and opioid epidemic.”

Public television stations there are responding by collaborating on focused coverage of the crisis. The stations are working together to produce a series they call “Battling Opioids.”

The collaboration kicked off last month and has already yielded cooperation from state agencies and won the support of Gov. Wolf.

On The Pub, I talked with Kathleen Pavelko, president and CEO of WITF in Harrisburg; David Solomon, EP at WQED in Pittsburgh; and Tom Currá, president and CEO of WVIA in Pittston.