Opioid Epidemic Episodes

Feb. 5, 2024

594: New Opioid Website, Firearm Violence Strategy

Dr. Tomás Aragón, ASTHO Member and Director and State Public Health Officer of the California Department of Public Health discusses a new website to give people the information they need to understand and deal with the opioi…
Dec. 8, 2023

560: Businesses Supporting Public Health, Guide Helps Agencies with Antibiotic Stewardship

Dr. Jerome Adams, former United States Surgeon General, says businesses learned from the pandemic that public health is a worthy investment; Destani Bizune, an epidemiologist in the Office of Antibiotic Stewardship at the CD…
Sept. 27, 2023

512: Court Cases Impacting Public Health, Helping PH Managers

Christina Severin, ASTHO’s Director of Public Health Law, outlines upcoming Supreme Court cases that will impact public health; Susan Donnelly, Workforce Director at the Oklahoma State Department of Health, shares the work h…
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 wi…
Aug. 25, 2023

490: Immunization Policy Statement, Fiscal Year Predictions

Kris Ehresmann, former Director of Infectious Disease at the Minnesota Department of Health, describes ASTHO’s revised policy statement; Jeffrey Ekoma, ASTHO’s Senior Director of Government Affairs, discusses predictions for…
April 14, 2023

399: Trust Strategies, Congress Gets Back to Work

Dr. LaQuandra Nesbitt, Senior Associate Dean at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health, reflects on restoring trust in public health; Jeffrey Ekoma, ASTHO Senior Director of Government Affairs, tells …
March 28, 2023

386: Dealing with Xylazine, Island Care for Veterans

Dr. Daniel Edney, State Health Officer for the Mississippi State Department of Health, discusses the dangers of Xylazine, a strong tranquilizer, and how to treat patients who have ingested it; Moses Pretrick, Federated State…
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, di…
Oct. 17, 2022

284: Public Health Careers Website Launches

Joanne Pearsol, ASTHO’s Director of Workforce Development discusses the debut of ASTHO’s new public health jobs website, ; an ASTHO blog article assesses Tennessee’s progress on Opioid Use Disorder throughout its maternal an…
Sept. 28, 2022

272: Oregon’s Regional Health Equity Coalitions

Jeffrey Ekoma, ASTHO’s Senior Director of Government Affairs, discusses a White House summit he attended in recognition of National Recovery Month; Mike Fraser, ASTHO’s CEO is heading to the White House for the bipartisan Co…
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 …
July 20, 2022

223: New PFAS Water Quality Advisories

Bruno Pigott, Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Office of Water at the Environmental Protection Agency, calls attention to new drinking water guidance that considers exposure to PFAS chemicals from all sources of exposu…
July 18, 2022

221: Massachusetts Opioid Strategy

Margret Cooke, Commissioner for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, reflects on new preliminary data showing possible improvement this year for opioid-related overdose deaths; Dr. Amy Ladley, the State Perinatal Q…
March 14, 2022

137: Opioids Get Presidential Attention

Dr. Cathy Slemp, West Virginia’s former state health officer, reflects on President Biden’s comments about America’s opioid epidemic in his recent State of the Union address; Paul Petersen, Director of Emergency Preparedness…