549: Role of Schools in Preventing Teen Overdose, CDC Builds Outbreak Modeling Network

ROBERT JOHNSON: 

This is the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition for Tuesday, November 21, 2023. I'm Robert Johnson. Now, today's news from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials

LAUREN TANZ: 

From the end of 2019 through the end of 2021, median monthly overdose deaths involving illegally made fentanyl nearly tripled among adolescents between the ages of 10 and 19 years old.

JOHNSON: 

Dr. Lauren Tanz with the CDC talking about the rising numbers of teen overdose deaths in the U.S. She says one answer could be the opportunity to work in schools. 

TANZ: 

Schools can ensure that they have resources available to support students and staff during these challenging times, and schools are a place where teens spend a lot of their time and our key in providing teens with the tools to prevent overdoses.

JOHNSON: 

Teens spend a lot of time in and around schools. Tanz says that makes them a critical piece of any response plan.

TANZ: 

Schools can work to increase awareness among teenagers, teachers, parents about the dangers of fentanyl and counterfeit pills, and train them on how to spot and respond to overdoses. Schools can also promote positive youth engagement both within the school and within the community.

JOHNSON: 

Tanz says parents, family members, friends, and others in the community are part of the answer is well.

TANZ: 

We can all learn about the dangers of fentanyl and counterfeit pills. We can learn how to recognize drug use warning signs and how to respond to an overdose and we can carry and keep Naloxone at home. It really can save someone's life.

JOHNSON: 

You can review the CDC stats on teen overdose by clicking the link in the show notes.

The CDC has announced the creation of a new national network of private, public, and academic partners working together to improve outbreak and disease modeling. This is the CDC's Dr. Dylan George.

DYLAN GEORGE: 

Insight Net will expand our capacity to support state and local public health partners in their efforts to detect, respond, and mitigate public health emergencies.

JOHNSON: 

Over the next five years, George says the CDC will invest more than $262 million to build and operate the network.

GEORGE: 

Just like the National Weather Service provides daily and weekly forecasts across the nation and then people use that information to modify their behavior based on what the weather looks like. Insight Net will be used to advance tools to give a clearer picture of what's happening right now, what we can anticipate in an outbreak in the handful of days or weeks ahead of us, and also to see where we might have challenges in the future.

JOHNSON: 

Insight Net currently has 13 grant recipients and more than 100 partners, including state and tribal agencies, all focused on one goal.

GEORGE: 

You know, we wanted to improve the types of tools that could be useful for decision support in an emergency, we wanted to really determine whether or not those new tools that we're coming up with could actually be helpful to decision makers and then lastly, we wanted to figure out how to scale them.

ROBERT JOHNSON: 

You can read more about Insight Net using the link in the show notes.

Also, this morning, Public Health Thank You Day was yesterday. This is the third year we've asked people in public health to tell us what they're thankful for. We started airing their responses last Monday here on the newscast. We have two left before we break for Thanksgiving later this week. Here's our next to last thank you note of the season by Lyle Petersen at the CDC.

LYLE PETERSEN: 

I've worked in the CDC for many years in infectious disease dealing with infectious disease problems and I'm very thankful for public health to help prevent people from getting infected with a whole multitude of infectious diseases like SARS, and Zika, and Dengue now, and and other infectious diseases. So, I'm very proud of the work that public health has done to prevent people from getting some pretty nasty infectious diseases.

ROBERT JOHNSON: 

The American Public Health Association has a webpage about the day we have the link in the show notes.

Before we go, we'd like to remind you to follow this newscast on your podcast player and ASTHO on social media. We're on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. That'll do it for today.

We're back tomorrow morning with more ASTHO news and information. I'm Robert Johnson. You're listening to the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition. Have a great day.