Alex Cohen is the Director of Learning and Evaluation for the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. The toll of the opioid epidemic is often measured in lives lost due to overdose—and for good reason. It’s estimated that, across the United States, 115 people die of opioid overdose every day. But the impact of opioids can also be seen in HIV and Hepatitis C infections, which are being driven up by rising numbers of individuals injecting opioids. From 2013 to 2017, Indiana’s Marion County has seen a 1,000 percent increase in acute Hepatitis C cases, mirroring national trends. HIV has also spiked in recent years. These patterns have inspired the Marion County […]

Alex Cohen is the Director of Learning and Evaluation for the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. The opioid epidemic, and related behavioral and mental health issues, is wreaking havoc in the lives of Hoosiers across the state and in Marion County in particular. To help address the crisis, the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation is making strategic grants to expand access to treatment for those struggling with addiction. It’s important to our Foundation and the people these grants are designed to help that we target our grants to areas of greatest need, which we do by tracking several key metrics related to access to treatment. One metric we monitor is the behavioral […]