This week’s ‘CBS News Special: America Changed Forever’ features Shannon Monnat. Monnat speaks on drug use and how the COVID-19 pandemic influenced drug-related deaths in 2020. Listen to or download the podcast here.
Lerner Affiliate Danielle Rhubart (left) and Lerner Graduate Fellow Yue Sun (right) published an article in Population and Environment. They found that property flood risk is higher in rural and socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods. Read their article, “The Social Correlates of Flood Risk: Variation along the U.S. Rural-Urban Continuum.”
AP News reports there has been a 29% increase in overdose deaths from last year- a record high at 93,000 deaths. “What’s really driving the surge in overdoses is this increasingly poisoned drug supply,” said Shannon Monnat. “Nearly all of this increase is fentanyl contamination in some way. Heroin is contaminated. Cocaine is contaminated. Methamphetamine is contaminated.”
Read the entire article here: https://apnews.com/article/overdose-deaths-record-covid-pandemic-fd43b5d91a81179def5ac596253b0304
In a new paper, Lerner Fellow Austin Brown used grounded theory methodology to reveal common benchmarks, or topographic recovery features, involving the evolution of identity as an inter-negotiated process throughout the addiction and recovery biographies (Charmaz, 2008; Glaser & Strauss, 2017). From this, a six-stage theory model of recovery identity is formulated and explored. This model may help to serve recovery program managers to classify incoming individuals, identify and address needs, and facilitate innovative programming to meet such needs as they relate to the identity transformation process.
Congratulations to faculty affiliate Jennifer Karas Montez for earning an Honorable Mention for the 2021 Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship in Population Award for the paper, “US state policies, politics, and life expectancy.”
Shannon Monnat coauthored a paper, “The Opioid Hydra: Understanding Overdose Mortality Epidemics and Syndemics Across the Rural-Urban Continuum” (published in Rural Sociology), that won the 2021 Fred Buttel Outstanding Scholarly Achievement Award from the Rural Sociological Society. This award recognizes outstanding scholarship in the form of a book or article that advances the field of rural sociological knowledge. Congratulations to Shannon!
Lerner Fellow Xiaoyan Zhang publishes new research in the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences. They found that Intergenerational Emotional Cohesion (IEC) was negatively related to loneliness, which in turn was associated with depressive symptoms and life satisfaction. Further, this indirect pathway linking IEC and depressive symptoms (but not life satisfaction) was positively conditioned on the size of friendship ties.
A huge congratulations to Lerner Chair Shannon Monnat, who received the 2020-21 Excellence in Research Award from the Rural Sociology Society! The award recognizes an RSS member who has made outstanding contributions to rural-oriented research and/or theory. Well done!
Mary Helander’s issue brief discussing how motorcycle fatality rates due to head injuries are lower in states with helmet laws was featured in this Forbes article, Thinking Of Not Wearing A Motorcycle Helmet? Think Again.
Colleen Heflin was recently quoted in a Military Times article after her congressional testimony Thursday, May 27, 2021, on military and veteran food insecurity.
There’s a clear need for more data about the problem, advocates said. “We suffer from a lack of systematic information about the level of food insecurity among active-duty members. This means we can’t identify and focus on the pockets of where it be higher than others,” said Heflin.
“If DoD collected systematic information and made it available on food insecurity and food assistance participation, this would identify the problem,” Heflin.
Read the full article here: https://www.militarytimes.com/pay-benefits/2021/05/27/a-national-outrage-lawmakers-seek-solutions-to-food-insecurity-in-military-veteran-families/
Read Dr. Heflin’s Issue Brief on the topic here: https://surface.syr.edu/lerner/137/
