Episode #1806

Northern Maine is home to some of America's poorest - but it ranks high on national measures of health. Hospital programs visit more patients in their homes where they can be more comfortable and receive everything they need, which in turn reduces medical costs.

Billions of people around the world lack access to safe sanitation, causing disease and deaths. In Ecuador a foundation developed a cheap, dry, composting toilet for poor rural families.

Uganda’s education ministry requires all schools to have incinerators to burn used sanitary pads. Lack of funding limits schools’ ability to comply. Even when incinerators exist, girls don’t necessarily use them. Educating both girls and boys about menstruation reduces stigma and increases the likelihood that girls feel comfortable enough to collect pads instead of throwing them in pit latrines.

Crossroads for Women, a New Mexico nonprofit, is helping formerly incarcerated women find community, support, and recovery. Using trauma-informed care practices, the program offers a comprehensive list of services like housing, mental health treatment, employment counseling, and substance abuse treatment. Underlying all services is the understanding that no individual is trauma free and that community and relationships are crucial to sustainable recovery.

Across New Hampshire, youth are leading the fight against substance abuse. Programs like Dover’s Youth-to-Youth, Stand Up Sachems, Youth Leadership Through Adventure, and the Making it Happen Coalition, are all youth-led, adult-supported initiatives that are empowering young adults to create and disseminate substance abuse awareness and prevention campaigns. Fundamental to each of these efforts effective communication and creating a sense of community as key to prevention.

The simple addition of adding handles to bathroom stalls in the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh has helped the camps' pregnant women regain a sense of empowerment and dignity. Providing support and balance, the design of these latrines have benefited the elderly in the camps as well.

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.

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.

Collegiate recovery programs or communities — like the Center for Collegiate Recovery Communities in Texas — are robust resources for students struggling to overcome substance use issues, whether they’re in long-term recovery or new to the process. Some offer scholarships for students in recovery, dedicated staff and counselors, and sober social activities.

El Recovery Institute of Southwest Michigan, Inc., usa un método que se llama apoyo entre pares (emparejando personas con experiencias similares) para ayudar el proceso de recuperación. El Recovery Institute ofrece grupos, clases, reuniones individuales y reuniones sociales, y su también participan en actividades de divulgación en la comunidad. En los últimos años, el Recovery Institute ha atendido a miles de personas.