School Notes: School of Public Health
November/December 2018

Hands-on Naloxone training

In the aftermath of the mass drug poisonings that occurred on and around the New Haven Green in August, YSPH students organized training in administering Naloxone, drawing nearly 100 fellow students. Naloxone, most commonly called Narcan, is an opioid overdose antidote that is becoming increasingly available to the general public as the opioid epidemic in America continues to spread. “By offering this, . . . more members of the Yale community will feel comfortable using Naloxone and teaching others what they know, should the need ever arise,” said student organizer Molly Doernberg.

HIV outbreak in Indiana could have been prevented

An HIV outbreak in Indiana from 2011 to 2015 among people who inject drugs could have been avoided if the state’s top health and elected officials had acted sooner on warnings.

The YSPH study, published in the Lancet HIV, found that the number of HIV infections could have been drastically reduced in Indiana’s Scott County and that the state’s belated response in March 2015 came after the peak of the epidemic, likely having little effect on its trajectory. The finding, said the researchers, offers a stark warning to public officials confronting the opioid crisis across the United States: Ignoring the risk of HIV can have terrible consequences for public health.

US senator promotes health care at YSPH

In a visit to the Yale School of Public Health in September, US senator Chris Murphy defended the Affordable Care Act and spoke about “buttressing” its gains with new legislation that makes Medicare directly available to every citizen. “We’ve made enormous progress since we passed the Affordable Care Act,” Murphy (D-CT) told a standing-room-only crowd of some 200 people. He cited a sharp rise in the number of people with health coverage and a sharp drop in the number of personal bankruptcies. But, he noted, a formidable group of lawmakers remain deeply opposed to the ACA and are committed to gutting it. “There is an extraordinary amount of sabotage that is happening,” he said.