Background: Opioid use has reached epidemic proportions in rural communities in the United States and injection of drugs is commonly used. As a result of shared or reusing needles and syringes, the risk for contracting blood-borne diseases is significantly increased. Rural areas face many social and attitudinal barriers regarding syringe exchange…

Internationally, service user involvement has become a common feature of public policy and more specifically public health policy in the recent decades. In a general context, the involvement of service users in health services has been well documented; however, less evidence is available within the area of drug treatment service provision. This…

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has developed training and technical assistance services to train indigenous outreach workers hired by NIDA's national Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) outreach demonstration research projects. The NIDA community outreach demonstration research projects for AIDS are the first large-scale,…

The emphasis in health education should be on preventing illness. Health education programs must go beyond the classroom and into the community. (JD)

Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) is a comprehensive and integrated approach to the delivery of early intervention and treatment services through universal screening for persons with substance use disorders and those at risk. This paper describes research on the components of SBIRT conducted during the past 25 years,…

Two resource centers were funded by the Illinois Alcoholism Prevention Initiative to facilitate primary prevention and health promotion efforts at the local level. Located in DeKalb and Springfield, the centers assisted the Illinois State Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Division of Alcoholism in building a body of…

This health education guide for kindergarten through high school contains concepts and learning activities appropriate for each age group. The following major units are included: 1) personal health, 2) family health, 3) nutrition, 4) mental and emotional health, 5) use and misuse of substances, 6) diseases and disorders, 7) consumer health, 8)…

For potential grant applicants and for the general public, the booklet describes the programs of the six Public Health Service agencies in the American health care system. Each program is described concisely in terms of: its purpose and legal basis; applicants' eligibility for grants and the basis for their award; the special requirements made of…

The North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC) released this report in response to recent calls for a return to institutionalized care for children. The response is based on NACAC's long-held position that: (1) every child deserves a family; (2) institutionalization is not an acceptable substitute for a family; and (3) many important,…