A newly awarded $1 million U.S. National Science Foundation grant will allow a group of multidisciplinary researchers at Penn State, in collaboration with Georgia Tech, to develop an early warning system for identifying and responding to emerging substance use threats such as the rise of fentanyl overdoses in our communities.
Two gifts totaling $50,000 are kicking off an international research project led by Penn State Abington professor Pierce Salguero into the diagnosis and treatment of meditation sickness, a largely unknown occurrence in practitioners of intensive meditation.
Penn State Abington senior Angelea Francesco presented her research on Pennsylvania adolescents with gender dysphoria at the World Professional Association for Transgender Health scientific symposium, where she shared her findings that transgender youth describe their gender in various ways but have a clear idea of who they are and are certain of the medical care they want.
Diane Rosenbaum, assistant professor of psychology at Penn State Abington, explains that weight bias or negative attitudes toward higher weight is a key risk factor for mental health challenges including eating disorder symptoms, depression, and negative body image.
Criminal justice data is under-utilized in research despite its high relevance and unique role in the opioid crisis, according to a recent study by Penn State researchers using crime incident data. The study found that opioid-related crime incident rates were positively associated with rates of opioid-related emergency department visits, hospitalizations and overdose mortality.
A new Penn State-led project is educating coroners, medical examiners, and others in the death-certifier community in Pennsylvania about the reporting of substances associated with accidental overdose.
Penn State researchers provide informed commentary on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the criminal justice system (CJS), focusing on its efforts to contain the spread of the virus through the three core components of the CJS — courts, corrections, and policing – as well as opportunities going forward. To read more, visit the "Insights from Experts" website — a partnership of Penn State's Social Science Research Institute and the Center for Health Care and Policy Research.
Bill Rowan, program director of the Center for Counseling Services at Lehigh Valley Hospital – Schuylkill, spoke about counseling and resources pertinent to the disease of addiction.
In his keynote address, Dr. Glenn Sterner, assistant professor of Criminal Justice at Penn State Abington, provided an overview of the opioid crisis from the early 2000s until today. “This is a disease. This is not a moral failing,” he said.
Nonmedical opioid users were more likely to say they began abusing opioids after friends and family members offered them the drugs, according to researchers. About 56 percent of the interviewees said they began using the painkillers recreationally first.
