Could venomous snails be part of the solution to the opioid epidemic?

To protect the heads of football players, it might be advisable to have them occasionally practice without head protection, according to a counterintuitive new study of a successful Division I football program.

Research has found that physical movement, such as dance, can be an affective treatment and rehabilitation for people with Parkinson’s Disease. The Dance Well Initiative brings people with Parkinson’s, as well as community members, together to stage dance performances in gallery spaces as treatment and a creative response to the surrounding art.

A program called the Safety Planning Intervention is reducing the occurrence of repeat suicide attempts among veterans. The program helps veterans establish a safety plan and identify a support network that they can rely on during times of crisis.

In Costa Rica, a group of volunteer firefighters use donated equipment, gear, and their own cell phones to fill in a big gap in emergency services. More residents are now accustomed to calling them directly for fires and other emergencies, and the community supports them financially. The firefighters are trying to integrate their work into the country's emergency alert system and to build their own fire station.

To better position services during and after natural disasters, many nonprofits are turning towards mapping technology. Specifically, Facebook’s Disaster Maps share usage data to indicate movement, such as where people evacuated before Hurricane Florence. Humanity Road is another map source that includes data on infrastructure. Putting this information together, nonprofits such as Direct Relief can more accurately target their emergency response services.

Hospitals in Colorado are changing their approach to opioid crisis by treating patients that come in as emergent cases and rushing them into medication-assisted addiction treatment. The model has proved so successful that doctors are now looking to expand this approach to methamphetamine users as well.

To help address the shortage of personal protective equipment in hospitals, companies and individuals in the fashion industry are turning from clothing production to face mask production. This approach, which is being implemented across the U.S. and Europe, not only helps the medical industry, but also helps to keep those in the fashion industry employed during the pandemic.

The Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program in Alamosa, Colorado, gives police officers the option of sending people to substance abuse treatment rather than straight into the criminal justice system. Used in non-violent cases, the diversion program is based on a harm-reduction model that uses a health-care approach rather than a punitive approach to address the underlying issues when a crime is committed. Some police officers object to the program's mission, but proponents say that forcing compliance would be counterproductive.

The Wraparound Project at Zuckerman San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center turns gunshot victims' hospital stays into "a teachable moment," by providing them with services aimed at helping them avoid a repeat injury. Getting shot once is a key risk factor for a second injury, particularly for gun violence's most common victims, young Black men. Wraparound is one of the nation's oldest hospital-based violence intervention programs. It has helped about 850 clients, mostly with mental health counseling, housing, and jobs. The program is associated with a decreased reinjury rate in San Francisco.

Fifty years on, America's war on drugs has failed at its principal goals: to eradicate illicit drug use and sales, to repair communities damaged by the drug trade, and to prevent drug-related deaths. Despite massive amounts spent on law enforcement, which has created great social harms and fueled incarceration, drug use has rebounded to 40-year highs, drug overdose deaths are peaking, and supply of illegal drugs is abundant. Policy advocates say a combination of legalization and public-health approaches to the problems would accomplish more than the wasteful, ineffective "war" mentality used to date.