Center for Policy Research News

Shannon Monnat, associate professor of sociology and Lerner Chair for Public Health Promotion says long-running challenges in many rural communities are the underlying drivers of the increase in opioid overdose rates, things like economic decline and social isolation. 

Lerner Chair Shannon Monnat's research found that the Rust Belt counties that put Trump over the top were those that lost the most people in recent years to deaths of despair—those due to alcohol, drugs, and suicide.

"We must tackle root causes, which... drive suicide, alcohol-related deaths and more," says Shannon Monnat, Lerner Chair for Public Health Promotion.

David Popp, professor of public administration and international affairs and Carolyn Rapking Faculty Scholar in Public Administration and Policy, will receive the 2018 William Wasserstrom Prize for the Teaching of Graduate Students. The prize is awarded every year to a faculty member in the College of Arts and Sciences who embodies the role of a seminar leader, research and dissertation director, and advisor and role model.

"Opioids may have been the spark, but a spark needs kindling in order to ignite," says Shannon Monnat, associate professor of sociology and Lerner Chair for Public Health Promotion.

"The issue is trying to balance everything," says David Popp, professor of public administration and international affairs, pointing out that wind energy is not easily stored. "Most of the demand is downstate, where most of the wind energy is upstate."