The Evidence-to-Impact Podcast

We're closing out this semester's season with a conversation about prevention and partnerships. We focus on a discussion between a long-standing collaborative relationship between Penn State and the Pennsylvania Commonwealth government, which targets interventions and prevention work targeted towards youth and families. Our episode covers a wide span of topics, including why prevention and implementation work are difficult, but critical; the changes that happen when there's a political transition, and much more.We spoke to Janet Welsh, PhD, Research Professor at the Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Center, and the Principal Investigator of the Evidence-based Prevention Intervention and Support program (EPIS) and SPEP™ (Standardized Program Evaluation Protocol) at Penn State, and Geoff Kolchin, Deputy Director of Unit of Violence Prevention Initiatives in the Office of Justice Programs at the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD), about their decades long collaboration between EPIS and PCCD.Resources and Additional InformationWrong Pocket ProblemPAYS ReportsThe transcript is available here.

For this month’s episode, we did something a little different. We spoke to two researchers with two different approaches to tackling the same problem: knowledge mobilization. In essence, the concept of knowledge mobilization focuses on making knowledge, resources or practices that exist in one space and making them accessible to specific audiences. We talked about the work behind SOSNetLab (Social Opportunity Space Networking Lab) and the Research-to-Policy Collaboration, barriers to this type of research and implementation, and what the future has in store for addressing this problem.We spoke to Taylor Scott, PhD., Co-Director of the Research-to-Policy Collaboration and Assistant Research Professor at the Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Center at Penn State, and Alan J. Daly, PhD., SOSNetLab Chief Executive Dreamer, and Professor, University of California, San Diego as well as SOSNetLab’s full team, which includes: Mimi Lockton, Ed.D., SOSNETLAB Chief Project Catalyzer, and Doctoral Candidate at the University of California San Diego; Anita Caduff, SOSNETLAB Chief Swiss Army Knife, and Ph.D. Candidate at the University of California San Diego, and Martin Rehm, Ph.D., SOSNETLAB Chief Data Wrangler, and Post-Doctoral Scholar at the University of Regensburg in Germany.ResourcesSOSNetLab’s WebsiteResearch-to-Policy Collaboration’s WebsiteTaylor mentions the work of Jennie Noll, Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at Penn State, Director of the Center for Safe and Healthy Children, and a previous guest on this podcast; and Francesca Lopez, the Waterbury Chair in Equity Pedagogy and Professor of Education at Penn State.Additionally, Taylor discusses working with the Kauffman Foundation and the William T. Grant Foundation to expand their work on entrepreneurial research.SOSNet’s work is supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.The transcript for the episode is available here.

This month's episode discusses mental health screenings for adolescents in the K-12 school system. We spoke to Deepa Sekhar, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics at the College of Medicine, and Executive Director, Penn State PRO Wellness; Perri Rosen, PhD, NCSP, Consulting Psychologist, Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, Pennsylvania Dept. of Human Services, and Steve Sharp, School Counselor in the Hempfield School District, and K-12 School Counseling Coordinator for the Hempfield School District about why having mental health screenings (or mood screenings) in K-12 schools makes a difference when helping children who might be struggling and getting them the resources that they need to succeed.Episode Resources and ReferencesThe SHIELD study is mentioned several times throughout the episode. SHIELD stands for Screening in High Schools to Identify, Evaluate and Lower Depression.The Student Assistance Program (SAP) is a systematic team process used to mobilize school resources to remove barriers to learning. SAP is designed to assist in identifying issues including alcohol, tobacco, other drugs, and mental health issues which pose a barrier to a student’s success.Steve mentions receiving a school safety grant through Pennsylvania Commission and Crime and Delinquency (PCCD). He also mentions getting an ESSER grant through the Department of Education.Deepa discusses the SHIELD study receiving funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration and the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute.Steve mentions using MTSS teams, which stands for multi-tiered systems of supports.Lastly, Steven talks about the CAMS Model (Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality), which is a therapeutic framework for suicide-specific assessment and treatment of a patient’s suicidal risk.

We're back for our third season! Kicking off the 2022 season, we explore the juvenile justice system in Pennsylvania.We spoke to Megan Kurlychek, Professor of Sociology, Criminology and Public Policy and Associate Director of the Criminal Justice Research Center at Penn State, and Rick Steele, Executive Director of the Juvenile Court Judges’ Commission at the Pennsylvania Commonwealth, about their work in the juvenile justice field, the history of the juvenile justice system, prevention programs, the issue of recidivism, and more.Episode Resources and NotesMegan mentions that she began her career working at the National Center for Juvenile Justice, located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.Both Rick and Megan discuss the concept of parens patriae. According to the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law, parens patriae is Latin for "parent of the people." Under parens patriae, a state or court has a paternal and protective role over its citizens or others subject to its jurisdiction.Megan discusses the court case, In re Gault, as one of the landmark Supreme Court cases that changed how juvenile justice was approached back in the 1960s.Rick refers to the MAYSI-2, the Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument – Second Version, when mentioning how behavioral health and substance use issues are assessed among justice-involved youth.Additionally, Rick discusses how the Pennsylvania Commonwealth has incorporated the University of Cincinnati's EPICS, Effective Practices in Community Supervision, into their probation model.Rick mentions using a standardized program evaluation protocol based on the work by Mark Lipsey, Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University.Megan mentions a prevention program that partners nurses with young mothers called the Nurse-Family Partnership.The School-to-Prison Pipeline is something that both Megan and Rick discuss as it relates to prevention research and programming.Megan talks about risk need assessments for assessing justice-involved youth. More information is available here.Rick discusses the Models for Change program, which helped to advance reforms to make juvenile justice systems more fair, effective, rational, and developmentally appropriate. He also mentions the Big Brothers, Big Sisters program, which is nationally renowned.JCJC's reports are available online for anyone interested in reading more about their work.Rick talks about working with other researchers in the field such as Gina Vincent, Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, Keith Cruise from Fordham University, and Edward Mulvey, Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh's School of Medicine.Megan mentions her book, The Cycle of Juvenile Justice, which she co-wrote with Tom Bernard, Ph.D. back in 2010.The transcript for the episode is available here.

This month marks the beginning of the third season of this podcast! We're kicking things off by exploring the opportunities and challenges of Pennsylvania's child welfare system. For the past several years, there has been an ongoing partnership between Penn State researchers and government partners to change the Commonwealth's county-based child welfare system through legislative and policy actions. We spoke to Jennie Noll, Ph.D., Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies and the Director of the Child Maltreatment Solutions Network at Penn State University, and Brian Bornman, Esq., Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Children and Youth Administrators Association, about their collaborative process, the challenges of navigating a stressed bureaucratic system, and what the future holds for resolving issues of child welfare and maltreatment. Episode Resources and Notes Brian mentions several horrific cases of child abuse that made headlines in Pennsylvania, including the Danieal Kelly case in Philadelphia, the Grace Packer case, and the Jerry Sandusky case. (Please note that these links include severe graphic descriptions of child abuse and violence.) The transcript for this episode is available here.

This month's episode tackles all things related to the U.S. Census. We discussed the decennial Census, the data products created and released from the U.S. Census Bureau, the current demographic trends and challenges, and measuring hard-to-reach populations.We spoke to Raeven Chandler, Ph.D., Director of the Pennsylvania Population Network (PPN) at the Population Research Institute (PRI), and Assistant Research Professor of Rural Sociology at Penn State, and Eric Jensen, Ph.D., Senior Technical Expert for Demographic Analysis in the Population Division at the U.S. Census Bureau, about their work as demographers, both in academic and government settings, and some issues around collecting and analyzing data, especially as it pertains to the 2020 Census.Episode Resources and NotesEric mentions the American Community Survey (ACS) and the Current Population Survey as some examples of the many data products that the U.S. Census Bureau produces for the public.Eric discusses how Penn State has a Federal Statistical Research Data Center (RDC), a place where qualified researchers can access restricted microdata from a variety of statistical agencies.Raeven and Eric talk about some issues around collecting data in college towns across the United States. Most recently, some towns have said that they want to challenge the results of the 2020 Census.Raeven discusses the concerns surrounding questions about Latino and Hispanic heritage questions on the 2020 Census. For more information about that topic, this is a blog post from the U.S. Census about the issue.Eric mentions the U.S. Census Bureau working with two Penn State demographers, John Iceland, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Demography, and Jenny Van Hook, Ph.D., Roy C. Buck Professor of Sociology and Demography at Penn State. He also mentions Sue Capella at the Pennsylvania State Data Center, which is part of Penn State Harrisburg.The transcript for this episode can be found here.

In this month’s episode, we tackled innovations in healthcare. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we’ve seen a focus on various healthcare innovations and technology like artificial intelligence, cloud-enabled solutions, and inpatient telehealth, but other innovations are important, too. Some of these focused on in Pennsylvania include how we can get more value out of the country’s healthcare system without sacrificing the quality of care and lowering barriers for underserved populations.We spoke to Dr. Doug Jacobs, M.D., M.P.H., Chief Medical Officer and Chief Innovation Officer in the Office of the Secretary at the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, and Meg Small, Ph.D., Director of Social Innovation and Assistant Research Professor at the Penn State Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center, about what it means to have a healthcare system that pays for value, promotes health equity and addresses the social determinants of health; measuring the success of healthcare innovation; healthcare innovations involving mobile technology; and other improvements to expanding access while reducing healthcare costs.Episode Resources and NotesFor more information about DHS’s efforts on healthcare innovation, visit this page.In response to a question about how health equity frames prevention science, Meg brings up a collaboration project with a woman named Lavelle Smith Hall, an entrepreneur and founder of a company called MOMLogics. MOMLogics serves Black moms and empowers them with parenting strategies so they can enjoy better relationships with their children, spouses, and families.Meg discusses a program called Museums for All that allows families and children receiving food assistance (SNAP benefits) free or reduced admission to over 700 museums throughout the United States simply by presenting their EBT card.Meg mentions the research of Karen Bierman, Ph.D., Evan Pugh Professor, Professor of Psychology and Human Development and Family Studies, and Director of the Child Study Center at Penn State. For more of her work, visit Karen’s Google Scholar page.Meg mentions Penn State faculty affiliate and pediatrician, Laura Jana, M.D., and her work on adopting reach out and read programs into early learning centers. More information about Laura can be found here.Doug refers to a healthcare system in Pennsylvania that has a “fresh food pharmacy” where physicians can prescribe fresh food for families.Meg references The Common Good by Robert Reich.The transcript for this episode is available here.

  For this month's episode, we explore a topic that we have wanted to cover for some time: unemployment and the pandemic labor market. As the nation begins to "reopen" and the economy begins shifting, many states have begun ending pandemic-era unemployment insurance benefits. For many, unemployment insurance was the only thing keeping them afloat following the unprecedented unemployment crisis at the beginning of the pandemic. And yet, despite the unbelievable numbers of unemployed workers in our country, the stigma of receiving unemployment insurance persists. We asked ourselves why, in a time of tremendous health and economic crisis, are we giving folks who need help a hard time? We know that research shows that many families and individuals are still out of work and struggling to afford adequate food and pay mortgages or rent. Like other topics we covered - childcare and food insecurity, for example - the pandemic has made it abundantly clear that our country's systems are unsustainable and not enough to support the financial needs of families and individuals. To debunk some of the concerns and myths of unemployment and dive into the shifting economy, we spoke to Sarah Damaske, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Labor and Employment Relations, Sociology and Women's Studies at Penn State and Associate Director of the Population Research Institute (PRI), and Mark Price, Ph.D., Associate Director of Research at the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA). We discussed the stigma of experiencing unemployment or receiving unemployment insurance, how and why men and women experience unemployment differently, wage stagnation in the education sector, and more. We encourage listeners to also check out Sarah's new book, The Tolls of Uncertainty: How Privilege and the Guilt Gap Shape Unemployment in America. While it is not required reading for this episode, it does paint a picture of pre-pandemic unemployment and provides salient policy recommendations to our unemployment system. Episode Resources and Notes Sarah's new book, The Tolls of Uncertainty: How Privilege and the Guilt Gap Shape Unemployment in America, is out now. Buy it through Princeton University Press or on Amazon. Sarah and Mark mention the work of Kathryn Edwards, an economist at the Rand Corporation. Sarah mentions the Great Depression-era photographs by Dorothea Lange as inspiration for her book. You can find more of Dorothea Lange's work here. The transcript for this episode is available here.    

For this month's episode, we examined how the pandemic has revealed the "hidden crisis" of food insecurity throughout Pennsylvania and the rest of the country. According to the U.S. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, food insecurity is defined as the disruption of food intake or eating patterns because of lack of money or other resources. For example, this could mean cutting down on the number of meals or changing the types of food that you eat to save money. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the issue of food insecurity moved to the forefront as many people lost their jobs, schools went virtual and scrambled to set up school lunch pickups, supply chains stumbled, and food banks and community refrigerators flooded with people seeking food to feed their families. While we would argue that food insecurity was never a "hidden crisis," the pandemic worsened it for many children and families. We spoke to Muzi Na, Ph.D., M.H.S., Assistant Professor of Nutritional Sciences and the Broadhurst Career Development Professor for the Study of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention at Penn State University, and Vonda Ramp, M.S., R.D., State Director of Child Nutrition Programs at the Division of Food and Nutrition in the Bureau of Budget and Fiscal Management within the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PA DOE), about who has been impacted by food insecurity and what is being done to help people access healthy food in their communities. Episode Resources and Notes SSRI "Insights from the Experts" COVID-19 Blog Series: Food insecurity in Pennsylvania during the COVID-19 pandemic: Addressing immediate concerns and opportunities for the future JAMA Network Open: Disparities in Diet Quality in School-Age Children—Opportunities and Challenges Dr. Na discusses something called the 24-hour recall method following a question about how to measure the nutritional and health concerns related to food insecurity. According to the National Institutes of Health, the 24-hour dietary recall method is a structured interview intended to capture detailed information about all foods and beverages (and possibly consumed by the respondent in the past 24 hours, most commonly, from midnight to midnight the previous day. Ms. Ramp references how the PA DOE has applied for over 80+ U.S. Department of Agriculture child nutrition program waivers since the pandemic began. At this time, the PA DOE has applied to over 90 waivers. The transcript for this episode is available here.

This month, we return to our Pandemic Perspective series and explore the state of the childcare system in Pennsylvania during the pandemic. We discuss the challenges and opportunities to funding, access, and quality for the childcare system. We spoke to Karen Grimm-Thomas, Director of External Relations at the Pennsylvania Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL), and Philip Sirinides, Associate Professor of Education in the School of Behavioral Sciences and Education and Director of the Institute of State and Regional Affairs (ISRA) at Penn State Harrisburg, about the impact that the pandemic has had on childcare providers and families throughout Pennsylvania. OCDEL is a collaborative effort between the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services that focuses on creating opportunities for the commonwealth's youngest citizens to develop and learn to their fullest potential. The Institute of State and Regional Affairs leverages Penn State's unbiased data expertise and the resources to provide multifaceted data and research support services to partners in government and the private sector. Episode Resources ISRA's Report on the Impact of COVID-19 on Pennsylvania Child Care ISRA's Report on the Cost of Childcare in Pennsylvania Breakdown About OCDEL's COVID-19 Funding The transcript for this episode is available here.

This month's episodes feature everything but the kitchen sink! We're tackling how government, primarily at the local and state levels, transitioned to remote work, unemployment and the recession, the messaging behind school closings/mask wearing, the 2020 Election, COVID-19 vaccines distribution, and everything in between. As part of our new series, The Pandemic Perspective, we spoke with Commissioner Mike Pipe, Centre County Chair of the Board of Commissioners and Co-Chair of the Election Board of Centre County, and Dr. Chris Witko, Associate Director of the School of Public Policy and Professor of Public Policy and Political Science at Penn State University. This episode is the second episode of a two-part episode about this topic. Listen to Part 1 here. Please note that this episode was recorded in early December 2020. Resources/Additional Links for this Episode Business Insider: Unemployment surged to 14.7% in April as the US lost a record 20.5 million jobs U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Ability to work from home: evidence from two surveys and implications for the labor market in the COVID-19 pandemic ProPublica: What Coronavirus Job Losses Reveal About Racism in America NPR: Pandemic Forces More Women To Leave The Workforce Pew Research Center: Economic Fallout From COVID-19 Continues To Hit Lower-Income Americans the Hardest Newsy/Ipsos: Newsy/Ipsos Poll Finds Broad Support For National Mask Mandate Pew Research Center: More Americans say they are regularly wearing masks in stores and other businesses The Hill: Restaurant group calls on governors to make closing indoor dining 'a last option' WITF: The dispute over the Wolf administration’s handling of coronavirus in nursing homes, explained New York Times: More Than One-Third of U.S. Coronavirus Deaths Are Linked to Nursing Homes The Evidence-to-Impact Collaborative Podcast's new series, The Pandemic Perspective, examines how the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and various aspects of our society, institutions, and other systems have collided, changed, and even collapsed in the last nine months. The transcript for this episode is available here.

This month's two part (!) episode features everything but the kitchen sink! We're tackling how government, primarily at the local and state levels, transitioned to remote work, unemployment and the recession, the messaging behind school closings/mask wearing, the 2020 Election, COVID-19 vaccines distribution, and everything in between. For the second episode of our new series, The Pandemic Perspective, we spoke with Commissioner Mike Pipe, Centre County Chair of the Board of Commissioners and Co-Chair of the Election Board of Centre County, and Dr. Chris Witko, Associate Director of the School of Public Policy and Professor of Public Policy and Political Science at Penn State University. This episode is broken into two parts - we had a lot to talk about! - and will be released biweekly. Please note that this episode was recorded in early December 2020. Resources/Additional Links for this Episode Business Insider: Unemployment surged to 14.7% in April as the US lost a record 20.5 million jobs U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Ability to work from home: evidence from two surveys and implications for the labor market in the COVID-19 pandemic ProPublica: What Coronavirus Job Losses Reveal About Racism in America NPR: Pandemic Forces More Women To Leave The Workforce Pew Research Center: Economic Fallout From COVID-19 Continues To Hit Lower-Income Americans the Hardest Newsy/Ipsos: Newsy/Ipsos Poll Finds Broad Support For National Mask Mandate Pew Research Center: More Americans say they are regularly wearing masks in stores and other businesses The Hill: Restaurant group calls on governors to make closing indoor dining 'a last option' WITF: The dispute over the Wolf administration’s handling of coronavirus in nursing homes, explained New York Times: More Than One-Third of U.S. Coronavirus Deaths Are Linked to Nursing Homes The Evidence-to-Impact Collaborative Podcast's new series, The Pandemic Perspective, examines how the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and various aspects of our society, institutions, and other systems have collided, changed, and even collapsed in the last nine months. The transcript for this episode is available here.

In this month's episode, we spoke to Alexis Santos, PhD, Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at Penn State, and David Saunders, Director of the Office of Health Equity for the Pennsylvania Department of Health, about different disparities throughout the Pennsylvania Commonwealth and how the lack of good data impacts what we understand about poverty and health inequities. The discussion stems from a project between Penn State's Administrative Data Accelerator and Office of Health Equity which examined associations between socioeconomic characteristics of the counties of Pennsylvania and life expectancy. Interestingly, those associations can potentially help to address disparities across the state through policy mechanisms. According to the U.S. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion's website, the phrase "social determinants of health" are conditions in the environments in which people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks. Conditions (e.g., social, economic, and physical) in these various environments and settings (e.g., school, church, workplace, and neighborhood) have been referred to as "place." Note: This episode was recorded prior to the outbreak of COVID-19 and does not address current circumstances, but the issues discussed are undoubtedly exacerbated due to the conditions of the pandemic. For clarification, Penn State's Administrative Data Accelerator is an infrastructure of the Evidence-to-Impact Collaborative at Penn State, which specializes in the acquisition, linkage and responsive use of often sensitive administrative data for research purposes—coming from both government, industry or other sources Transcript is available here.

For this month’s episode, we spoke to Penn State’s Marty Sliwinski, PhD, Director of the Center for Healthy Aging and Professor of Human Development and Family Studies, and Stephanie Cole, Director of Special Projects and Executive Assistant at the Office of the Secretary at Pennsylvania Department of Aging, about challenges and opportunities related to aging. This episode was recorded in February 2020 before the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic and mandatory physical and social distancing. The Podcast Team believes the discussion of our country’s aging population is more salient than ever as individuals, families, and children remain quarantined in their homes to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and give our healthcare system a fighting chance. And since individuals of advanced age are presented with higher risks, this is more important that ever. Aging is a lifelong process, beginning at birth, and continues throughout adulthood. Through this lens, we begin to understand the problems that our country’s population faces now and in the next several decades when we will reach a cultural tipping point in which there will be more people over age 65 than age 18 and under. For that reason, there must be a shift in integrating our country’s systems like healthcare, housing, and transportation to better adapt to our aging population. Transcript available here.

This week, we spoke to two experts on issue about criminal sentencing guidelines. Sentencing guidelines are a set of standards that are generally put in place to establish rational and consistent sentencing practices within a particular jurisdiction. Guests: Jeff Ulmer is a Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Penn State and the Program Head of the Criminal Justice Policy and Administration MPS Degree for Penn State World Campus. His research interests include criminology, social psychology, sociology of religion, organizations, and the integration of qualitative and quantitative methods. His current projects Mark Bergstrom is the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing and an Associate Teaching Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Penn State. He started working for the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing in 1992 and took over as its Executive Director in 1998.  

Part 2 is here!In this follow-up episode, we take a deeper look at the Madison Area Recovery Initiative (MARI). Dr. Aleksandra Zgierska (Penn State), Captain Joe Balles (retired, Madison Police Department), and Captain Diana Nachtigal (Madison Police Department) share how evidence-based outreach, peer recovery partnerships, and innovative diversion strategies are reshaping the connections between policing, addiction recovery, and community health. More information on MARI can be found here: https://www.cityofmadison.com/police/community/mari/

You know what time it is - new episode! This one takes a deep dive into how community policing supports recovery and crime reduction, specifically within the Madison, Wisconsin area. The host, Michael Donovan, sits down with Dr. Aleksandra Zgierska from Penn State, Captain Joe Balles, and Captain Diana Nachtigal of the Madison Police Department to explore this topic further.The conversation dives into the development of the Madison Area Recovery Initiative (MARI), an innovative police-led diversion program designed to break the cycle of drug-related offenses without relying on the traditional justice system. The episode offers a new perspective into how evidence-based policing and community engagement can transform public health outcomes, and sustain these efforts long term. More information on MARI can be found here: https://www.cityofmadison.com/police/community/mari/

We are back! We have a discussion with Denise Holden, founder and CEO of the RASE Project, a recovery community organization that has since expanded outside of Pennsylvania and Dr. Sarah Kawasaki, the Chief of Addiction Medicine, and Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Internal Medicine at Penn State Health. This episode discusses the opioid crisis, the negative stigma surrounding this, and the process of recovery.

Supporting Recovery, Strengthening Families, & Fostering Healthier Communities: Effective Approaches to Addressing Substance Use Disorders in Justice-Involved PopulationsSummary:The substance use epidemic in the United States remains a significant public health concern. The rate of drug overdose deaths has increased substantially over the past decade. This risk is particularly heightened when individuals with a substance use disorder (SUD) encounter a transition in their lives, such as being released from a correctional facility. Within two weeks of release, the risk of overdose is between 8-40 times higher than standard risk. People with SUD are also overrepresented in the criminal justice system and often experience barriers to services. Effectively treating and preventing SUD among this population can help reduce recidivism, SUD and overdose rates, and lead to other positive outcomes for individuals, families, and communities (e.g., crime reduction, mental health, economic mobility). The consequences of inaction are far-reaching, which motivates this panel to discuss policy options with bipartisan appeal. Researchers will discuss innovative strategies to address SUD among justice-involved individuals – during and after release from incarceration. Additionally, the researchers can share insights on innovative approaches, opportunities to involve families in recovery, and ways to remove barriers to services.Panelists:Erin S. Corbett, EdD; CEO, Second Chance Educational Alliance, Inc. (Moderator)Melissa Svigelj, PhD; Assistant Professor, Justice Studies, James Madison University Noel Vest, PhD; Assistant Professor, Boston University School of Public Health Christy Visher, PhD; Professor, Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, University of DelawareKey Points in Discussion:RTP Introduction 00:02Moderator Introduction 03:32Panelist Introductions 04:50Discussion 08:00Concluding Remarks 47:33

We’re back! The Evidence-to-Impact Podcast is back with a new episode where we discuss The Adolescent Health Network (AHN) from Penn State PRO Wellness. This episode features a conversation with Dr. Deepa Sekhar, executive director of Penn State PRO Wellness, Victoria Smith, career coordinator at Hershey High School in the Derry Township School District, and two amazing 12th-grade students and past program participants, Sarah Anderson, and Mena Morsy.The AHN is a program that connects health researchers with teens to get their feedback on research ideas, helps researchers design studies that are more relevant to adolescents, and gives students valuable experiential knowledge of health careers and research in general. This program is a great way to ensure your research is relevant to teens and their health needs. In addition to providing feedback on research ideas, teens can also help with study design, recruitment, and dissemination strategies.