PITTSBURGH BUSINESS TIMES - A University of Pittsburgh public health law class that recently presented five recommendations for curbing opioid deaths in the region using naloxone to the Allegheny County Health Department will share those recommendations today at the American Public Health Association's annual meeting in Denver. The two-year-old class, Law in Public Health Practice, focused its semester-long research into tackling opioid abuse on three at-risk populations: veterans, inmates and schoolchildren.
In a 122-page report, the class offered five recommendations, including offering naloxone and training on its use to inmates with a history of opioid abuse upon their release from Allegheny County Jail, offering medication-assisted treatment to affected inmates, and finding ways to provide naloxone to veterans and their families through a collaboration with the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System. “Of the populations we studied, our research suggests that people recently released from incarceration would benefit the most from naloxone distribution because they are highly susceptible to overdosing,” said Elizabeth Van Nostrand, assistant professor of health policy and management at Pitt’s Graduate School of Public Health
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10/31/2016