HEALing presented at the Association of Foreign Correspondents of the USA event

October 16, 2019

Dr. Robin Kerner, Senior Project Director for HEALing Communities, presented as part of the "Implications for policymakers public health advocates & governments" panel at the Association of Foreign Correspondents of the USA event. 

Foreign journalists from Japan, Finland, Russia, India, Greece, Africa and other countries from across the globe gathered in New York City to discuss strategies to address the opioid crisis at the Association of Foreign Correspondents of the USA meeting.

Dr. Robin Kerner, Senior Project Director for the New York State HEALing Communities Study, presented the Study during the panel "Implications for policymakers public health advocates and governments." The panel was facilitated by Atul Singh, CEO and Editor in Chief of the Fair Observer.

Dr. Robin Kerner presenting for the group

The group discussed new and evolving interventions in the opioid crisis, from Naltrexone in Norway to medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) induction in county jails.

Co-panelists included

  • Dr. Magdalena Cerdá, Associate Professor and Director of the Center for Opioid Epidemiology and Policy, at the Department of Population Health at the New York University (NYU) School of Medicine;
  • Dr. Josh Lee,  Associate Professor, Department of Population Health, School of Medicine, NYU and Director of the NYU Fellowship in Addiction Medicine;
  • Dr. John Rotrosen, Professor, Department of Psychiatry at NYU School of Medicine; 
  • Dr. Donna Shelley, Professor, College of Global Public Health and Professor of Poulation Health at the School of Medicine, NYU, and
  • Dr. Lars Tanum, Professor, University of Oslo & Head Research Unit, Akershus University Hospital is a specialist in Psychiatry and Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology.

Of the event, Dr. Kerner says,

Our discussion about the importance of policy was valuable, and I appreciated building on that to include the HEALing approach which really underscores that for sustainable change to occur, we need to engage our communities at the local level.

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About the Association of Foreign Press Correspondents in the United States

From the AFA website

The original Association of Foreign Press Correspondents in the United States (1918-1939) was founded in New York by foreign media representatives in the United States to protect the independence of the press across the globe. The 21st century AFC United States was created to transform the movement of foreign correspondents in the United States and be their authentic voice of representation addressing and equipping them with greater access to informational resources, diversified skills, advanced knowledge seminars as well as networks of experts and enabling them to better serve their profession in the country. The organization is represented only by professional journalists who live and work in the country as foreign correspondents.

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About the HEALing Communities Study

The HEAL (Helping to End Addiction Long-termSM) Initiative launched by NIH is a trans-agency effort to speed scientific solutions to stem the national opioid public health crisis. The Healing Communities Study (HCS) aims to reduce opioid deaths across New York State by 40% in three years.The $86 million grant was awarded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

Columbia’s School of Social Work, along with partner universities, will work in 16 counties across New York State to address the opioid epidemic.  Nabila El-Bassel, University Professor and the Willma and Albert Musher Professor of Social Work and co-founder and Director of the Social Intervention Group, and her colleagues secured this major funding based on their community-focused public health interventions.

This federal grant, one of Columbia’s largest ever, brings together Columbia’s School of Social Work, the Department of Psychiatry, the Mailman School of Public Health, the Data Science Institute, as well as researchers from Albert Einstein School of Medicine/Montefiore School of Medicine, City University of New York, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York University School of Medicine, University of Miami, and Yale School of Medicine.

Read more about HEALing in Columbia Magazine.

 

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