Population Health Spotlight: Understanding and Reversing the Tide of the Opioid Overdose Epidemic

 

Objectives

• To understand what groups and areas have experienced the highest opioid overdose rates in the United States
• To examine the evidence on some of the potential factors that explain why overdose rates are higher in some areas of the country
• To review the evidence on the impact of selected policy approaches on opioid overdose rates

Magdalena Cerdá, DrPH, MPH

Associate Professor, Department of Population Health New York University School of Medicine

 

Cerdá, DrPH, MPH is an Associate Professor in the Department of Population Health at the New York University School of Medicine. She obtained her doctorate from the Harvard University School of Public Health in 2006, and is a former Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholar. Her research focuses on the effects that state and national drug and health policies have on substance abuse trends, and on the ways the urban context shapes violence. Cerdá has more than 130 publications in peer-reviewed journals, in addition to six chapters in major textbooks. Current funded research focuses on the impact that cannabis laws and opioid policies have on substance abuse, mental illness, and associated health problems in the United States and South America. In addition, she is evaluating the impact that firearm disqualifications based on mental illness and substance abuse criteria could have on population-level rates of firearm-related mortality.

 

*1 CPH credit available*