Issue Brief Highlights Actions to Address Drug, Alcohol and Suicide Deaths

An issue brief released this week by The Trust for America’s Health and Well Being Trust highlights actions that the health care system – including hospitals and health systems – can take to help address issues like drug overdoses, alcohol-related deaths and suicides. “Prioritizing prevention, working together, improving behavioral health services and engaging in responsible pain treatment and management practices, health care systems can help mitigate the devastating epidemic of drug overdoses, alcohol-related fatalities and suicides among the next generation of Americans,” the brief says. Among other resources, the brief highlights an AHA toolkit released in October that offers guidance and case examples to help hospitals and health systems work with their patients, clinicians and communities to tackle the opioid epidemic.