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Friday, April 21, 2023

'Addiction and the media: Stigmatizing language and best practices' virtual meeting May 17; free, but registration required

National Institute on Drug Abuse image
The HEALing Communities Study Learning Collaborative at the University of Kentucky is will offering an online session titled "Addiction and the media: Stigmatizing language and best practices" at 11 a.m. ET May 17.

The event is open to journalists, journalism students, community members, health-care professionals and interested coalition members, but requires registration. Click here to register. 

The featured speaker will be Carol Krause, senior advisor consultant to the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institutes of Health. Following her presentation, there will be a roundtable discussion with Terry DeMio, opioid-epidemic reporter with the Cincinnati Enquirer; Brittany Hurley, peer support specialist with Ramey Estep Regroup; and Alene Kennedy-Hendricks, assistant professor with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. 

The panelists will discuss best practices in reporting on addiction and the media's response to reducing stigma. One continuing education credit will be offered for registered nurses, advanced practice nurses, pharmacists, physicians, social workers and licensed clinical alcohol and drug counselors who attend.

The session resembles one held in Ashland in November 2019 at "Covering Substance Abuse and Recovery: A Workshop for Journalists," sponsored by Oak Ridge Associated Universities and the University of Kentucky's Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, publisher of Kentucky Health News.

"Nobody has the power to change language like us," Bishop Nash said at the workshop. A former health reporter at the Herald-Dispatch in Huntington, W.Va., a city that has been called the epicenter of the opioid epidemic, Nash said that once he understood the science of addiction and why it was important to not use stigmatizing language, it has been an easy switch. "It really requires a change of heart," he said. "When you get your heart wrapped around this issue, you really don't have to think about it."

The HEALing (Helping End Addiction Long Term) Communities Study is a four-year, $87 million study to see how tools for preventing and treating opioid misuse and opioid-use disorder are most effective locally. 

Findings from the study will establish best practices for integrating prevention and treatment strategies that can be replicated by communities nationwide. The goal of the study is to reduce opioid-related overdose deaths by 40 percent. Kentucky is one of four states chosen for the study.

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