Monnat takes part in WH roundtable aimed at reducing opioid overdoses
The Maxwell School’s Associate Professor of Sociology
Shannon Monnat was one of thirty university representatives invited to join public
health officials from the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), the
U.S. Surgeon General’s Office, the Department of Education, and the Substance
Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration for a roundtable discussion of
strategies for combatting opioid overdoses on college campuses. The event was
held at the White House on Wednesday, November 13, 2019.
Monnat, who is also director of the Lerner Center for Public
Health Promotion at Syracuse University, says that while very few college
students are at risk of overdose from opioids, every student could find
themselves in a position to save a life; and higher education is in a unique
position to prepare the next generation of leaders with a better understanding
of the risk factors that contribute to abuse and overdose.
According to roundtable participants, college campuses face
dual problems of party culture and students self-medicating from undiagnosed
mental illnesses and/or anxiety from the college experience and college
demands. Students who are misusing other substances (e.g., cocaine, Adderall,
MDMA) are at an increased risk for opioid misuse or exposure to substances that
have been adulterated with the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl.
“Many people who misuse opioids are also misusing other
substances, and a common driver of this is self-medicating,” says Monnat, whose
research examines the connections between social disadvantage, place, public
policy, and health. “Health policy initiatives designed to tackle the opioid
crisis have focused primarily on downstream solutions designed to help those
who are already in the throes of addiction, which is important, but much more
can be done to combat the underlying factors that cause people to abuse drugs
in the first place.”
At the event, U.S. Surgeon General VADM Jerome M. Adams and
ONDCP Director James Carroll stressed the importance of ensuring access to life
saving interventions like naloxone and substance abuse prevention programs on college
campuses.
11/15/19