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Tackling The Opioid Crisis With A Million-Dollar Grant

Associated Press

September is Recovery Month, a time to increase awareness and understanding about substance use disorders and celebrate people in recovery. The University of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky University are among the nation's schools that have received a sizable grant from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration. The money will go toward training students for careers in behavioral health professions focused on substance use.

This also comes as Purdue Pharma, maker of the painkiller OxyContin, will pay billions to states and local governments as the nation's opioid lawsuits get underway. As the Washington Post reported this summer, America's largest drug companies flooded the market with 76 billion pain pills over a six-year period, during the nation's deadliest drug epidemic.

Joining Cincinnati Edition to discuss how this million-dollar federal grant money will impact local efforts to combat the opioid epidemic are St. Elizabeth Healthcare Executive Director of Health Innovation and Vice President of Health Innovation Dr. Valerie Hardcastle; with the University of Cincinnati are College of Nursing Executive Director of Undergraduate and Pre-licensure Programs Angela Clark, PhD, RN; College of Allied Health Sciences Master of Social Work Program Director and School of Social Work Associate Professor Shauna Acquavita, PhD, MSW, LISW-S; and School of Human Services Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Counseling Program Michael Brubaker, Ph.D., LICDC-CS, NCC; and Ohio State Association of Nurse Anesthetists Peer Assistance Advisor Committee Chair Jack Stem.

Listen to Cincinnati Edition live at noon M-F. Audio for this segment will be uploaded after 4 p.m. ET.

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Michael Monks brings a broad range of experience to WVXU-FM as the host of Cincinnati Edition, Cincinnati Public Radio's weekday news and information talk show.