Claire Fiddian-Green is the President & CEO of the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. Earlier this week, the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation released two reports showing that in 2017, the opioid and tobacco epidemics claimed more than 14,200 Hoosier lives and cost our state $12.6 billion in healthcare costs, lost productivity and economic damages. These reports provide an update from the 2016 analyses the Foundation commissioned on Indiana’s opioid and tobacco challenges. While positive steps have been taken to address both health crises, the dynamic nature of the opioid epidemic and the stubborn persistence of tobacco mean more work must be done to make meaningful progress. Everyone – including employers, healthcare leaders, […]

Alex Cohen is the Director of Learning and Evaluation for the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. The opioid epidemic continues to take a devastating toll in Indianapolis and across the state. While there are no silver bullets, there are interventions that have strong evidence for impact. Chief among them is medication-assisted treatment, or MAT. MAT is often controversial because of the common misconception that it simply substitutes one drug for another (i.e., methadone for heroin). On the contrary, medications like buprenorphine and methadone provide a limited dosage to reduce cravings and withdrawal and help individuals with opioid use disorder on their path to recovery. Most importantly, it works. There is ample […]