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From Collaboration to Collective Impact: A Community Approach to Tackle Youth Opioid Abuse on Staten Island
No single organization, however innovative or powerful, alone can address youth substance abuse in a community. A dedicated group of community members, philanthropists, behavioral health providers, law enforcement, government partners, and parents, understood this and came together to collectively...
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Ensuring Evidence-Based Treatment for Substance Use Disorders
The use of heroin, other opiates, and inappropriate prescription drugs are currently a major public health problem in this country. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), national death rates from prescription opioid pain reliever overdoses quadrupled during 1999 to...
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Will the Effort to Prevent Overdose Deaths from Prescription Painkillers Work?
Over 16,000 people per year die from overdoses of prescription painkillers (Opioid analgesics)—more than triple the number of deaths two decades ago.(2,4,5,6,12) This vast increase has led to a major public health initiative to reduce the misuse and abuse of these drugs. Will it work? There are...
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Addressing the Opioid Crisis in New York City
Like communities and cities across the country, New York City (NYC) has experienced increasing deaths from overdoses due to opioids, which include both opioid analgesics (prescription painkillers) heroin. In NYC, opioid overdoses are the leading cause of deaths from accidental injuries and a...
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Barriers to Medication Assisted Treatment for Opiate Use Disorders
It has become an all too familiar (but no less disturbing) scenario for the nurse practitioner working in a large drug treatment center in upstate New York. Today she is leading an educational support group for individuals who are opiate dependent and awaiting medication assisted treatment with...
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#CombatHeroin: New York State’s Campaign to Address Heroin and Prescription Opioid Abuse
Heroin and prescription opioid medication abuse are persistent national problems that are reaching deep into communities across New York State. The problem is increasingly affecting teenagers and young adults, though older New Yorkers are consistently affected. More and more people are dying...
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Better Pain Management is Essential for Reducing Addiction to Prescription Painkillers
Limiting use of prescription painkillers has become a major public health goal in the United States in large part because these drugs now cause more overdose deaths than cocaine and heroin combined. (1,2) Much of this effort focuses on persuading physicians to limit the frequency and the amount of...
