Dr. Jennifer J. Carroll heard the same story in her interviews with people who overdosed on opioids and were being treated in emergency departments: their supplier was arrested.

In Episode 6, Dr. Jennifer J. Carroll discusses research measuring the relationship between police drug seizures and drug overdoses in the city of Indianapolis. Using police records of overdose and public records of overdose, the researchers predicted the chance of an overdose within mere meters and days of a police raid. Understanding this association and the threat of drug supply disruptions helps us rethink the most effective approaches to drug enforcement and preventing death from drug overdose in communities across the U.S.

Read the paper published in the American Journal of Public Health: https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2023.307291

Read the CDC guidance document, Evidence-Based Strategies for Preventing Opioid Overdose: What’s Working in the United States, co-authored by Jennifer Carroll: https://www.cdc.gov/overdose-prevention/media/pdfs/2018-evidence-based-strategies.pdf

Learn more about evidence-based strategies for overdose prevention here: https://www.naco.org/program/opioid-solutions-center

Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and alcohol or drug problems often co-occur, or exist together, and military veterans experience these challenges at higher rates than civilians. For years, research has suggested that veterans don’t always benefit from PTSD treatments in the same way that civilians do, pointing to a need to learn more about the treatments that work for them. Today, we talk with clinical psychologist and mental health researcher Dr. Shannon Blakey, who breaks down new research on what actually works for veterans confronting these dual disorders.

Read Shannon's article in Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy: https://doi.org/10.1037/tra0002043

Learn more about different types of therapy for mental health and addiction here:

https://www.ptsd.va.gov/understand_tx/prolonged_exposure.asp

https://www.ptsd.va.gov/understand_tx/cognitive_processing.asp

https://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/treat/cooccurring/tx_sud_va.asp

https://strongstartraining.org/upcoming-events/

For healthcare providers: https://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/consult/index.asp

For patients/families: https://www.ptsd.va.gov/

In our media-saturated world, our kids are impressionable targets for advertisements for foods that are “high in” ingredients linked to obesity and nutrition-related disease: saturated fats, sodium, sugar, and calories. Children who see these ads have poorer health trajectories and higher rates of obesity. Unhealthy food ads contradict every parent’s best intentions to provide their child with a nutritionally balanced diet, turning daily choices into hair-pulling battles and grocery aisle meltdowns.

In this episode, we are joined by nutritional epidemiologist Dr. Lindsey Smith Taillie and media effects researcher Dr. Francesca Dillman Carpentier, who teamed up to understand the impact of global food policies that restrict advertising of unhealthy foods toward children. The study examines a case study of new regulations that rolled out in Chile, and how the country took a stand against food advertising for the sake of preserving the health of children. Lessons from Chile are spreading across the world and could serve as a model for reducing the influence of advertising on poor dietary choices for kids in the United States, where one in five children are obese.

Learn more about the UNC Global Food Research Program here: https://www.globalfoodresearchprogram.org/

Read the paper published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12966-023-01454-w