In an effort to better serve and reflect communities across Ohio, we want to hear from you. Please take a few minutes to share your opinion with us. Doing so will help us provide you and all the communities we serve with better resources and services.
The questions in the survey include demographics that help us ensure we're reaching all Ohioans, questions about identity, where you are in your prevention journey, and how Prevention Action Alliance serves and impacts you.
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Happy, Healthy, and Well: A Discussion about Mental Health during a Pandemic |
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Join PAA's Executive Director Fran Gerbig, Deputy Director Bobby Persinger, and special guest Tony Coder from the Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation on August 28th at 10 a.m. for a virtual conversation about mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. |
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Recordings: Previous Coffee Klatsches |
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Our two most recent coffee klatsches—on the role of prevention in addressing systemic racism and school reopenings—can be found on our YouTube page. |
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Coffee Klatsch with PAA:
Systemic Racism
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Helping Parents, Families, and Communities Return to School during COVID-19 |
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Virtual Training through the
Ohio Prevention Conference
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The 2020 Ohio Prevention Conference this year includes a virtual webinar series and a separate series of webinars on Working Minds, an initiative designed to help workplaces appreciate the critical need for suicide prevention while creating a forum dialogue and critical thinking about workplace mental health changes.
All sessions are free and courses are scheduled through September.
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Applications Open for the
Ohio Adult Allies Study Group
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Past participants have produced white papers, conference presentations, and more recently, an explainer video and infographic to introduce the value to youth-led programs to diverse audiences inside and outside of the prevention field. In this way, Study Group participants have the opportunity to develop the capacity of Ohio's adult allies while deepening their own understanding of the theories that inform youth-led programs.
Applications are due by Friday, September 4, 2020 at 5:00 p.m.
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Prevention News You Can Use |
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Change the Game Recognized Nationally |
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Ohio for Responsible Gambling (ORG) received top honors at the 2020 National Conference on Gambling Addiction & Responsible Gambling Awards Ceremony, held virtually on July 24. Competing against other statewide gambling prevention programs across the country, Ohio was honored in three major award categories, winning the following:
- Corporate Public Awareness Award for Change the Game Ohio, a youth gambling prevention campaign providing information and tools to parents, educators, and youth.
- Corporate Website Award for ChangeTheGameOhio.org, which features educational resources, a youth gambling awareness quiz, and a community toolkit with videos, posters, materials, and other educational tools for adults to use to help spread the message about youth gambling prevention.
- Media Award for Get Set Before You Bet, the main responsible gambling initiative of the state that helps at-risk populations connect to the support and resources they need.
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E-Cigarettes Raise Young People's Risk of Contracting COVID-19 up to Seven Times |
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Despite earlier misgivings, new research is pretty clear—e-cigarettes are vastly harmful and dangerous to young people especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
From the article: Young people ages 13-24 who used e-cigarettes were five to seven times more likely to be diagnosed with COVID-19. That's according to a nationwide survey of nearly 4,400 adolescents and young adults conducted by Stanford University's School of Medicine.
The study, conducted in May, found that a COVID-19 diagnosis was five times more likely to happen among anyone in that age group that had ever used e-cigarettes. It was seven times more likely in those who had ever used e-cigarettes and regular cigarettes (known as dual users).
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Many Cardiac Arrests May Actually Be Overdose Deaths |
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Data on overdose deaths is frequently used to estimate the cost of the opiate epidemic and other drug use. However, a new study has found that those deaths may be vastly undercounted, which underscores the need to have better data.
From the article: Americans have long known that there's an epidemic of opioid abuse and deaths in the United States. But a new report suggests the true extent of these tragedies has been underestimated.
The study, from researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, finds that 1 in every 6 deaths attributed to sudden cardiac arrest among San Franciscans between 2011 and 2017 may, in fact, have been triggered by a drug overdose.
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NIDA Seeks Public Input on Strategic Plan |
Twice each decade, NIDA (like other NIH Institutes and NIH as a whole) drafts a strategic plan to guide its research and funding decisions. NIDA’s strategic plan is meant to be a high-level articulation of its principles and priorities over the next five years, and how it intends to apply them to capitalize on exciting opportunities or break down research barriers. NIDA has begun drafting its strategic plan for 2021-2025, and to best inform that process, it is seeking input from the public and the scientific community. Specifically, NIDA wants input on:
- The scientific goals and actions articulated in the framework, including additional areas of opportunity that should be included in the plan, drawbacks or challenges to accomplishing these goals and actions, and/or other items for consideration
- Cross-cutting research topics and approaches articulated in the framework, and/or additional cross-cutting themes that should be considered
- Other topics that you find relevant to the development of the strategic plan
- Ways to ensure widespread dissemination and implementation of the plan
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DEA Wants You to Go Red
for Red Ribbon Week
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The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Red Ribbon Week, observed annually from October 23-31, highlights the importance of preventing drug misuse in our nation’s schools and communities and committing to living a healthy, drug-free lifestyle.
One of the ways in which you can help commemorate Red Ribbon Week this year is to Go Red for Red Ribbon, which brings awareness to living a drug-free life by lighting up buildings, landmarks, businesses, and bridges in red. Post a photo on your social media platforms, and tag #DEARedRibbon and #GoRed4RedRibbon.
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Know! Teens in Disguise to Buy Booze |
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Recently, we discovered that teens are going to new heights to get alcohol despite being underage. It all started with a TikTok video of a teenage girl dressed up like an elderly grandmother face covered by a mask. She was able to successfully purchase alcohol. The post immediately racked up millions of views as well as copycats.
Others have since posted that now is also the time to use fake IDs as only half of your face can be seen. They say the worst that can happen is that you’re asked to show your full face, in which case you simply refuse based on the idea of not wanting to catch the virus. You may not get the alcohol, but you get to walk away without consequence.
Underage drinking is often thought of as harmless by teens and even some adults. That's in spite of the large body of evidence showing that underage drinking increases the risk of death and injury as well as contributes to school, social, legal, and interpersonal problems. This Know! Parent Tip helps raise awareness about this new, dangerous trend.
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Marijuana is the most used illicit drug in the U.S., and it has a host of negative effects for adults but especially teens. Despite these well-known effects and its widespread use, there are a number of falsehoods spread about marijuana. The truth, however, is that marijuana has not been approved for medical use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, you can overdose on marijuana, it is addictive, and it increases users’ risk of getting into car crashes, developing schizophrenia or other psychoses, addiction, and more. |
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The number of young people who drank alcohol has steadily declined from 31% in 2006 to 19.9% in 2017, according to data from the Monitoring the Future survey. This infographic charts that progress as proof that prevention can, and does, work. |
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Drug use impacts the brain and body in myriad ways. This infographic shows five of those ways, emphasizing harm done to our mental health, lungs, and heart, but also the increased risk of addiction and of contracting various infectious diseases. |
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Grieving the Loss of a Loved One to an Overdose Death |
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When a loved one dies due to an overdose, it can often cause complicated grief, where the intensity of the grief doesn’t decrease over time. This fact sheet shares more information about grief, including coping strategies from one of our prevention networks, The G.A.P. Network, which is comprised of those who have lost a loved one to an overdose. |
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SAMHSA: Training and Technical Assistance Related to COVID-19 |
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SAMHSA is offering training and technical assistance to the field of mental health and substance use disorder. Resources are updated regularly and include webinars, videos, and presentations on:
- Rural social isolation
- Supporting students and staff going back to school with a mental health toolkit
- Building protective factors in yourself and the school community
- The effect of COVID-19 on children’s mental health
- And more
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Questions? Comments? Suggestions?
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