Alex Cohen is the Director of Learning and Evaluation for the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. Tobacco and opioids continue to claim Hoosier lives. Last year in Indiana, more than 1,700 died from a drug overdose, an increase of 13 percent over 2016. And each year, more than 11,000 people die in Indiana due to smoking cigarettes. Addressing these two public health issues requires collaboration across sectors. This includes employers. Aside from inflicting harm on Indiana residents, tobacco use and opioid misuse cost employers, too. It’s estimated that, each year, tobacco costs the state $7.6 billion and opioids cost an additional $1.5 billion. Employers pay a share of this through higher […]

Claire Fiddian-Green is the President & CEO of the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recently released a report showing that new Hepatitis C cases in the U.S. grew by nearly 300 percent between 2010 and 2015. The root cause of this dramatic increase is the opioid epidemic – specifically, the use of needles to inject heroin and prescription painkillers. Unfortunately, Indiana is one of seven states with rates of Hepatitis C infection at least twice the national average. This week, the Indiana State Department of Health released a county-level report detailing the broad and devastating toll of the opioid crisis in Indiana. The picture in […]