Announcements
In the News
Region's Narcan dose may be waning; more deaths feared as funds dip.
The Post-Gazette reviews local naloxone availability. PERU's Director, Dr. Jan Pringle, was interviewed along with two pharmacists affiliated with Project Lifeline.
NACDS Foundation Dinner Raises Nearly $1.9 Million for Public Health and Patient Care Initiatives
Excellence in Patient Care Award recognizes heroes in opioid-abuse prevention and treatment, including PERU's Director, Dr. Jan Pringle.
Project Lifeline expands as two pioneers receive Excellence in Patient Care Award: Dr. Jan Pringle, University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy Program Evaluation and Research Unit, and Judy Rosser, Blair Drug and Alcohol Partnerships.
Vaping’s Plausible Deniability Is Going Up in Smoke
The Atlantic covers the health risks of vaping, especially compared to cigarettes.
A ‘Sesame Street’ character’s mom has an addiction. Experts say that’s a valuable lesson.
The Washington Post covers the new Sesame Street programming that includes addiction education.
The Rehab Racket: Investigating the high cost of addiction care.
A sequel to their successful Confronting America’s Opioid Epidemic series, Vox explores the ineffectiveness of popular modes of drug use treatment and promotes evidence-based treatments, like MAT and motivational interviewing, as well as adjusting level of care to patient need.
Recent Publications
Implementation and evaluation of SBIRT training in a Community Health nursing course.
The purpose of this paper is to report on the implementation and evaluation of an SBIRT educational program into an undergraduate nursing curriculum and to recommend modifications for future trainings.
Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment: Implementation Into an RN-BSN Curriculum.
This paper reviews the integration of SBIRT into a 7-week online Community and Environmental Health Course for licensed nurses earning their Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree.
Health Care Use Over 3 Years After Adolescent SBIRT
This first-of-its-kind three-year cohort study based in California examines whether SBIRT encounters have a long-term effect on adolescent health care usage. Authors found that, over three years, compared to a usual-care non-SBIRT group, adolescents who received SBIRT care presented with fewer mental health and substance use disorder diagnoses and made fewer psychiatry visits; however, they did engage in more substance use treatment visits despite a lower rate of SUD. This proposes that SBIRT empowered these adolescents to take proactive measures in controlling their substance use, enabling them to avoid more negative outcomes. As SBIRT use continues to spread, we will likely see more long-term studies bear results like these.
The effect of BIs after DWI arrests—a tailored Brief Motivational Interviewing intervention has promising results regarding when and whom a BI can reach. It may help endear SBIRT practice to law enforcement. PDF available at the link if you’re logged in with Shibboleth.
ReadMI: An Innovative App to Support Training in Motivational Interviewing
Natural language processing (NLP) research is being done to help providers train their MI skills.
A Public Health Guide to Ending the Opioid Epidemic
A Public Health Guide to Ending the Opioid Epidemic does what only a public health approach can: offer credible, scalable, and empirically supported approaches to uprooting one of society's most pernicious challenges. It systemizes the core tenets of the public health approach to substance misuse and addiction, which alongside clinical approaches (prescription guidelines and monitoring, increased access to overdose-reversal medication, and medication-assisted treatment availability) offers a roadmap for end-to-end response to this diverse problem.