Opioids Episodes

Jan. 5, 2024

574: Tracking Respiratory Illness, Congressional Deadlines Loom

Dr. Marcus Plescia, ASTHO chief medical officer, is tracking reports of respiratory illness across the U.S.; Carolyn Mullen, ASTHO senior vice president for Government Affairs and Public Relations, discusses a federal funding deadline that is quickly...
Jan. 3, 2024

572: How Data Impacts Birth Defects, Parents and Teachers Can Help Prevent STIs

Dr. Karen Remley, ASTHO alum and director for the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities at the CDC, says early detection of birth defects is a focus in January; Dr. Anne Zink, ASTHO immediate past president and chief medical...
Nov. 1, 2023

536: Workforce Care Initiative, JUUL Settlements

Tom St. Louis, Director of the Office of Public Health Workforce Development for the Connecticut Department of Public Health, tells us about the new Culture of Care initiative that aims to help staff recover from the pandemic; Amy Ciarlo, ASTHO Senior...
Oct. 30, 2023

534: Alliance to Solve Substance Use, Advice to Prevent Falls

Dr. Cathy Slemp, Former State Health Officer for the WV Department of Health and Human Resources and now Co-Chair of the West Virginia Hope in Action Alliance, says the alliance is a group that builds collaborations focused on substance use concerns...
Oct. 24, 2023

530: Equity Policy Statement, New Maine Official Ponders Pandemic Lessons

Dr. Joan Duwve, State Health Officer for the Kansas Department of Health, talks about the need to put equity at the center of all public health work; Dr. Puthiery Va, Director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, explains that...
Oct. 18, 2023

526: Youth Substance Use Interventions, PH Jobs Website Attracts Candidates

Dr. Sarah Stoddard, a member of the Community Preventive Services Task Force with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, says the organization reviewed 60 studies to determine what can help prevent substance use among young people; Dr....
Sept. 12, 2023

501: Prepping for Cyber Attacks, Suicide Awareness and Data

Adrianna Evans, ASTHO’s Director of Preparedness and Disability Integration, says cybersecurity is an emerging topic in preparedness planning; Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, Chief Medical Executive for the State of Michigan, explains that suicide...
Aug. 31, 2023

494: Mapping Overdose Center Legislation, Overdose Prevention Work Demands Flexibility

JoAnne McClure, ASTHO Senior Analyst for State Policy, explains an ASTHO webpage that tracks legislation to authorize overdose centers in some states; Dr. Laura Chisholm, Section Manager for Injury and Violence Prevention with the Oregon Health...
March 2, 2023

368: Island Health Push, Ending the X Waiver

Alex Wheatley, ASTHO Assistant Director of the Island Support Team, says there is an urgent need to approve agreements that continue funding for health programs in several island nations; Carolyn Mullen, ASTHO Senior Vice President for Government...
Feb. 13, 2023

356: New York’s Opioid Partnerships, Arizona’s Mobile Vaccination Clinics

Dr. Jim McDonald, New York State Acting Health Commissioner, says partnerships with people in local communities are key to the state's response to the opioid crisis; Siman Qaasim, Health Equity Administrator for the Arizona Department of Health...
Feb. 9, 2023

354: Biden’s Opioid Message, Georgetown’s New Health Dean

Richa Ranade, ASTHO's Senior Director for Overdose Prevention, says it's encouraging to hear President Joe Biden prioritize solutions to the opioid epidemic in his State of the Union address; Dr. Christopher King, the first dean of Georgetown...
Feb. 6, 2023

351: A Reporter’s Drug Strategy, Childcare is Public Health

Julie Wernau, Health and Science Reporter at The Wall Street Journal, has spent the last year reporting on the opioid crisis and offers some advice for public health; Shannon Vance, ASTHO Senior Analyst for Family & Child Health, says the difficulty...
Feb. 2, 2023

349: Safe Drug Use Sites, Toxic Pandemic Stress

Julie Wernau, Health and Science Reporter at The Wall Street Journal, says drug use sites face many hurdles even if they have local permission to operate; Dr. Anne Zink, ASTHO President, tells the Associated Press that her members are anxious to...
Feb. 1, 2023

348: WSJ on Fentanyl Dangers, COVID Emergency Ending

Julie Wernau, Health and Science Reporter at The Wall Street Journal, has been reporting on the opioid crisis for more than a year but says it’s still a difficult story to write; Andy Baker-White, ASTHO Senior Director of State Health Policy, says...
Dec. 21, 2022

328: Opioids, Equity, and the Medicaid Cliff

Dr. Mark Levine, Vermont Department of Health's Commissioner of Health, discusses the opioid crisis in America and the policies his state has employed to save lives; Alicia Justice, ASTHO Senior Director of Programmatic Health Equity Initiatives and...
Nov. 4, 2022

298: Washington’s Opioid Agreement

Dr. Umair Shah, Secretary of Health for the State of Washington, discusses a settlement with three companies the state says played a key role in driving the opioid epidemic; Donna Levin, Director of Act for Public Health, discusses the legal landscape...
Sept. 2, 2022

255: New Naloxone Strategy

Dr. Nabarun Dasgupta, Innovation Fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health, discusses a new way to get more generic Naloxone to people who need it; Colorado works with six counties to respond to...
Feb. 24, 2022

125: COVID-19 Antivirals

Dr. Lisa Piercey, Tennessee’s Health Commissioner, says the increased availability of oral antiviral medications doesn’t lessen the need for vaccines to fight COVID-19; Cortney Lovell, co-founder of Our Wellness Collective, says she hopes a new...
Jan. 28, 2022

107: Immunization Opportunities

Rachael Banks, Oregon’s Director of Public Health, says the focus on immunizations during the pandemic is a perfect opportunity to expand the public health conversation. Immunizations are one of ASTHO’s top 10 policy issues to watch in 2022;...
Oct. 25, 2021

53: Grassroots Vaccination Strategy

Judith Persichilli, New Jersey’s Commissioner of Health, explains a data driven grassroots COVID-19 vaccination strategy that saved lives; New York Times journalist Danielle Ivory tells us how she would use the information in her story about public...