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 […]

Claire Fiddian-Green is the President & CEO of the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. There are many important efforts underway across Indiana to tackle the opioid epidemic. Stakeholders in the public, private and non-profit sectors – first responders, health systems, government agencies, employers and others – are allocating significant resources to help Hoosiers struggling with addiction find effective treatment, to help family members impacted by a loved-one’s addiction receive support and services, to make it harder for people to access opioids illegally, and to reduce the negative health consequences often associated with addiction. Most of these efforts are focused on addressing the challenges that occur when someone has already become addicted […]