Alex Cohen is the Director of Learning and Evaluation for the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. From July 2016 to September 2017, Indiana’s emergency departments saw a 35 percent increase in opioid overdoses, according to data released this month from the CDC. The most dramatic increases occurred in metropolitan areas like Indianapolis. These numbers indicate that the opioid epidemic shows no signs of slowing down. And they point to a continued need for efforts to address opioid use disorder in Marion County and across the state. Toward that end, Indiana Executive Director for Drug Prevention, Treatment and Enforcement Jim McClelland and Social Services Administration Secretary Jennifer Walthall announced this month a […]

Alex Cohen is the Director of Learning and Evaluation for the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. According to recently released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Indiana’s already high smoking rate has gotten worse, in contrast to declines in most other states. That is bad news for Hoosiers and our state’s economy. Smoking remains the number one cause of preventable death in the United States and takes a heavy toll on Indiana especially. An estimated 11,100 Hoosiers die each year from smoking, and an additional 1,400 nonsmokers die annually from exposure to secondhand smoke. Smoking in Indiana also translates to $3.3 billion annually in healthcare costs and another […]