In the News

PI's Dana Fields-Johnson speaks with USA Today's Jayne O'Donnell is this article on the Public Health Service Corps' approach to the opioid epidemic. Dana emphasizes the need to improve the community conditions that increase the risk of opioid addiction—everything from the loss of employment to the fraying social support networks to the lack of educational and economic opportunities. The Corps has the flexibility to do things like bringing together different community institutions to figure out how everyone in the community can play a role in turning the tide of this epidemic.

Prevention Institute’s work on connecting the dots between multiple forms of violence is mentioned in “Connecting the dots to break the chain of violence,” on page three of this special issue of The Nation’s Health. In “Integrating gender norm change in sexual violence prevention” on page eight, PI's Rachel Davis and Lisa Fujie-Parks discuss the role restrictive gender norms play in normalizing and increasing sexual violence, and the need to challenge those norms to prevent sexual violence.

This guest commentary in Modern Healthcare by Ganhi Pritesh hihglights how community centered health homes address upstream determinants of health and improve communities. "Clinical inventions alone can't get us to the health outcomes we want without complementary community interventions." 

Jocelyn Wiener of California Healthline writes about how CA became the second US state to increase the minimum tobacco sales age from 18 to 21, resulting in a significant drop in state retailers selling tobacco to kids under age 18. Most retailers support the new law, and Wiener quotes PI's Founder Larry Cohen as saying, “It’s a sign that there’s real momentum over the past couple of decades in recognizing that tobacco is harmful and that protections are appropriate.”