As we mark International Transgender Day of Visibility on March 31, celebrating people who are transgender and their contributions to our communities, the day also serves as an opportunity to raise awareness of the ongoing discrimination faced by trans people, particularly in the form of legislation in the United States.
Americans are deeply in debt. In the fourth quarter of 2023, total household debt increased by $212 billion to reach $17.5 trillion, according to a report by the Center for Microeconomic Data.
One of the key tools for combatting the opioid overdose epidemic, which claimed more than 100,000 lives in the last year, is the use of medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD). MOUD is a treatment approach that uses medications to relieve withdrawal systems or, in the event of a relapse, block the effects of opioids. MOUD is a vital tool to help individuals dealing with opioid use disorder (OUD) manage their recovery, and is considered the gold standard for treatment.
Harm reduction in the context of the opioid crisis is focused on preventing overdose and infectious disease transmission by working with people who use drugs without moral judgment. Far too often, the public health imperative of harm reduction is blocked by federal policy, state laws, and other structural barriers anchored in the “war on drugs” that reduce the effectiveness of harm reduction efforts. To maximize the potential of harm reduction requires a whole-of-government approach, involving coordination across levels of government.
There is a well-established whole of government response to drug policing centered around the “war on drugs.” However, the existing response is largely built on flawed policies that have resulted in mass incarceration, structural racism, and lagging improvements in treatment and harm reduction related to the opioid crisis. Policy changes must be considered to replace acknowledged failures and reimagine the whole of government response to drug policing.
People who need opioid use (OUD) treatment in the United States are often not receiving it—at least two million people with OUD are experiencing a treatment gap that prevents or hampers their ability to receive life-saving care and support. This reality reflects structural, policy, and legal misalignments common to the entire US health care system, but that are especially present for behavioral health needs like substance use, and are exacerbated by other challenges related to stigma, lack of employment, and fragmented or nonexistent care coordination.
Act for Public Health's October Legislative Update covered the newly released vaccine bill tracking data from the Temple University Center for Public Health Law Research (CPHLR), highlighting trends and examples across the widespread legal activity surrounding vaccine law during the 2023 legislative session.
Shane Reader from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston School of Public Health, recently published research in Drug and Alcohol Dependence that reveals patterns in implementation, facilitates future evaluations, and produces a roadmap for the dimension reduction of further policy surveillance datasets related to harm reduction and drug use.
Our team regularly tracks the use of our data and we have seen correlations between the data that seem to be most popular and current events.
June 24, 2023, marks one year since the US Supreme Court upended the limited constitutional protection of abortion afforded by Roe v. Wade. Now, the legal status of abortion varies even more drastically across the nation, compromising equitable access to this essential health care. While some states have moved to ban abortion outright, others have enacted measures attempting to protect and expand access.
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