Gabriel: Project Lazarus

Public health graduate student at Campbell University hoping to make a change in rural communities throughout NC.

[gabrielw1211]

Team Lazarus Wrap Up

As the semester comes to end, Team Lazarus created a presentation which gave a brief overview of Project Lazarus in Harnett county, the role of team Lazarus in the initiative and the tasks that we completed, challenges we faced during our practicum, the importance of this initiative in Harnett county, and lastly the future needs of project Lazarus. This presentation was a great way to end the semester because it gave me a chance to look over the semester and sum up everything that we have learned since we began in August.

            So far the primary goal of Project Lazarus in Harnett County has been to educate and raise awareness within the community about prescription drug abuse and misuse. Over the past few months, we have had the opportunity to meet with the local health department, the sheriffs department and Harnett County EMS. These were the most informative sessions about prescription drug abuse and misuse specifically in Harnett County.  Our biggest event, was a meeting with community stakeholders such as doctors, nurses, teachers, and members of the faith community. This meeting provided us with a lot of data that we hoped to use to apply for a grant. However, we were unable to go through the grant writing process during our time with Project Lazarus.  I most enjoyed participating in events that engaged the community and I hope that in the future there will be more opportunity for other students who get involved in this initiative to spend more time doing community outreach. I feel that there is so much to be learned from the community and based on the meeting that was held they have a lot good ideas that can help Project Lazarus accomplish its goals for Harnett County.

            We also,  created a public service announcement that was placed in the local newspaper. I enjoyed this task it was an opportunity to be creative and it also gave us a chance to brainstorm other ideas for targeting other populations. During our wrap up meeting with our preceptors we suggested getting involved with the school system and possibly arranging for people from project Lazarus to go to different schools in the area and speak or hold a competition in which middle and high school students would create there own PSAs about prescription drug abuse. Overall, I feel that if we had more time working on this initiative there are a lot of opportunities to educate and raise awareness within the community.

            Team Lazarus also spent time creating a presence on social media. We created a Tumblr page that has a lot of articles with useful information about prescription drug abuse. We spent hours pouring over articles and other forms research that we were able to put on the Harnett County Project Lazarus webpage.  I believe that the webpage is one of our biggest successes of the semester. Largely, our practicum a positive experience . It wasn’t perfect by any means but we were given the opportunity to work in a public health setting and there is so much that we learned from our successes and our failures. By far our biggest challenge was communication. It felt like we didn’t have as much as guidance as we would have liked. We also would have liked to have spent more time doing community outreach. However, because this initiative has only just begun it is understandable why there were not as many opportunities to spend time interacting with the community.  Overall, the  experience provided me with knowledge that I  am confident I will be able to use in the future.  I look forward to seeing the progress that Project Lazarus  makes in Harnett County and I hope that in time there is a decrease in prescription drug abuse and misuse in the community.

[gabrielw1211]

Team Lazarus Making Progress!

The semester is wrapping up and team Lazarus has been moving at a slower pace than we originally anticipated. One of the most frustrating issues for myself and team lazarus has been the lack of communication that we have had. Recently, our communication issues have improved. We now have a series of tasks that we are currently working on, and it finally feels like we are making progress.

We have spent our semester diligently working hard to educate ourselves and the community as well as raise awareness about the dangers of prescription drug abuse and misuse. Looking back on my hours for the semester, I am blown away by how much time I have spent just researching information that can be used to educate others. I can truly say, I have learned an invaluable amount of information about prescription drug abuse and misuse that I wouldn’t have thought to access prior to my experience with Project Lazarus.  Thus far, I’ve learned how rural areas can play a critical role in the abuse of prescription medications.  In the research, we found that a determinant of prescription drug abuse is the fact that rural areas are geographically isolated.  We saw examples of this in the film Oxyana, which documented how prescription drug abuse has augmented the lives of an entire town. Rural areas do not have the same luxuries that urban areas do and therefore teens lack constructive ways to spend there time.  As a person, who has never experienced being around people who have issues with prescription drugs, this entire experience working with Project Lazarus has been eye opening. 

Although we went through a period of time when communication was lacking, it seems that we are now able to see the fruits of our efforts. To date, team lazarus has met with professionals within the community, created public service announcements, developed a directory that contained information on drug disposal sites, created church bulletins and most recently we have been researching valuable information for parents, and teens to go on the Harnett County Project Lazarus webpage.  The church bulletins have been finalized and we hope to be able to build a partnership with the faith communities.  Our hope is that the church bulletin will start a positive dialogue about prescription drug abuse and misuse among members in the faith community. 

Originally, we had a number of churches that we wanted to present our flyer to however, we have been advised to narrow it down to three to start with. This was somewhat disappointing, because we looked forward to getting involved and engaging with the community. At first, we didn’t understand why we were unable to reach out to as many churches as possible. However, after much thought I realize that it may be a better strategy to start small, and lay a foundation in the faith community one church at a time rather than bombarding them all.  Facing this challenge was yet another learning experience that I am grateful for. Following our biggest event on September 9th team lazarus was really excited to become involved in community outreach. However, I feel that in some ways our expectations were too high. This is a fairly new initiative, and we did not consider how slow the process of building relationships in a community can be. 

The three churches that we were able to deliver bulletins to were receptive to the information that we had to provide and it seems that this is the beginning of a new partnership between Harnett County Project Lazarus and the faith community. I am happy to say that I have been apart of this process, and I look forward to seeing what partnerships that Project Lazarus is able to create in the future. For a while, it seemed as though we weren't making progress but now as I look back over the semester it feels like we have actually come a long way and we have so much more knowledge than what we began with. This has been the ultimate experience because we were able to experience real life successes and challenges in the public health field. 

[gabrielw1211]

Prescription Drug Abuse: Top 10 Things CDC Says You Should Know | The Rundown | PBS NewsHour

Linebacker Austin Box of the Oklahoma Sooners takes a break during a game in 2010. Box died of an accidental prescription drug overdose the following year. Austin Box “gutted through” pain. Even after a bad blow to his back that … Continue reading →

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This infographic illustrates where prescription drugs are obtained. I found it interesting that more than 50% of drugs come from friends or relatives.

Source: http://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/infographics/popping-pills-prescription-drug-abuse-in-america

[gabrielw1211]

A portrait of Oceana, WV, an old coal mining town that has become the epicenter of the Oxycontin epidemic, earning the nickname Oxyana. Directed by Sean Dunne.

This film provided team lazarus with a lot of useful information about prescription drug abuse in rural areas. This is one of the links that will be found on the Harnett County Project Lazarus webpage. 

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Website update

In the past week, team Lazarus is still actively researching information to place on the Harnett County website. Our goal is to have a website where there is comprehensive information about prescription drug abuse.

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Prevention of Prescription Drug Abuse and Overdose

This website provides a comprehensive list of websites that have information on prescription drug abuse and ways to prevent it.

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Team Lazarus

Team Lazarus has been meeting each week to brainstorm ideas and activities for Project Lazarus. We would like to think of more ideas that focus on the teen population in Harnett County.

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Project Lazarus website

Team Lazarus will be researching information for an upcoming page that will be on the Harnett County Health Department webpage. We are excited to work on this

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Creative ideas

Team Lazarus has successfully completed our first PSA which will appear in the local newspaper. We are now researching new ideas for another PSA that can be utilized in local schools. Team Lazarus is truly ready to use our creativity to come up with a special campaign that would be a new way to bring awareness of the dangers of prescription drug abuse to teens. 

We will also be taking on that task of webpage development. We have very little knowledge of how to complete this but we look forward to learning a new skill and being able to create a place where all of the information we have learned can be found in one location.I sense that this is going to be another opportunity that challenges our ability to be innovative; and I am really excited to move forward with this project. 

[gabrielw1211]

Team Lazarus Moving Forward

  As our midterm quickly approaches, I have had time to reflect on my time working with Project Lazarus so far. I have learned a number of things about working on an initiative like Project Lazarus. The first and most important lesson I have learned is that making a change as big as this takes time. It seems cliché but when I started out with Project Lazarus I expected everything to move at lightening speed and by the end of this semester I would see how all of our efforts helped to raise awareness about prescription drug abuse and see a noticeable decline in prescription drug abuse, overdoses, and deaths. I realize now that there are many moving pieces that make an initiative like this work, and I must be patient. Now, I can see that every small project that we work on contributes to the bigger picture. I know that what we are doing is going to make a difference but it may not be something I get to see tomorrow. I’ve also learned that it’s best to take baby steps towards meeting your goals, rather than taking on too much at one time and time management is absolutely the key to success.  Lastly, another important lesson that will be extremely valuable moving forward is to meet and get to know people within a community. Having the opportunity to meet with law enforcement, EMS, faith based communities and other community stakeholders have left me with invaluable information. It’s a rewarding learning experience to be able to hear the problem from the perspective of someone else. Specifically, from someone who is directly embedded in the community and is aware of community needs. Listening to what we have learned from speaking to these people in the community we have a better idea of who our campaign needs to target. These are just a few of the many things I’ve learned from my time with Project Lazarus. I will continue to take the lessons I’ve learned so far and implement them moving forward as we complete our practicum.

  So, as we continue to move forward through the final weeks of our practicum team Lazarus will be working on a draft for a public service announcement that will go in the local newspaper.  The public service announcement will be another way to raise awareness about prescription drug abuse and the efforts of Project Lazarus in Harnett County. Since team Lazarus started working with the Harnett county Health Department and Project Lazarus; there have been many hours spent educating ourselves on the dangers of prescription drug abuse. We are looking forward to having an opportunity to create a public service announcement that will allow us to share some of the information we have learned from our research. I am eager to see the effects our public service announcement on the community. This will be a great experience that will lend us the opportunity to learn what works and what doesn’t when trying to reach out to the community. We have also been brainstorming other creative ways to spread the word about Project Lazarus within the community.

  Aside from the public service announcement team Lazarus has also spent time creating a Tumblr page, church bulletins, and creating a list of medication drop off locations across North Carolinas. By providing information in church bulletins we are able to reach a large population of people in a variety of different age groups within Harnett County.  The Tumblr page will increase the awareness of Project Lazarus in Harnett County and be a place where interesting articles and other information about prescription drug abuse can be found in a central location. Lastly, based on the high volume of medications that were dropped off at the Harnett County Sheriffs Office, we now know that people within the community generally want to participate in decreasing prescription drug abuse. Therefore, providing a comprehensive list of places where medication can be dropped off free of charge will provide people with the information about places they can go to get rid of their unwanted medication. Not only that, but they also have the knowledge to tell others where to drop of their medications so that they don’t fall into the wrong hands.

With continued efforts to raise awareness of prescription drug abuse and the presence of Project Lazarus within Harnett County we hope to aid in reaching our goal of reducing prescription drug abuse. Although, I realize now that this is not an initiative that will happen in a short period of time. It is helpful to know that all of our efforts count towards the greater good. I am excited to see what the next few weeks with Project Lazarus will hold.

[gabrielw1211]

This week has been spent collecting data, and learning about how to successfully create a public service announcement about prescription drug abuse. So far, I've spent a lot of time researching prescription drug abuse, and looking at other PSA's. Based on the information and ideas I've seen I look forward to using this opportunity to find a creative way to relay information about prescription drug abuse and overdoses and how to prevent it. 

[gabrielw1211]

Combating the epidemic of opioid abuse—including prescription painkillers and, increasingly, heroin—requires a multi-pronged approach that involves reducing drug diversion, expanding delivery of existing treatments (including medication-assisted treatments), and development of new medications for pain that can augment our existing treatment arsenal. But another crucial component we must not forget is that people who abuse or are addicted to opioids need to be kept alive long enough that they can be treated successfully. In this, the drug naloxone has a large potential role to play.

This week team Lazarus met with the Harnett county EMS medical director and division chief. During our meeting, we discussed the use of Naloxone by emergency medical personnel as well as the advantages or disadvantages to having naloxone available to lay-persons. In recent years, there has been a push to widen the availability of naloxone to people who may be in a position to potentially prevent a drug overdose. This article demonstrates the success that lay-distributed naloxone has had in Massachusetts as well as other states across the country. Thus far, it seems that by allowing more people to have access to naloxone, prescription drug overdoses or fatalities can be greatly reduced. 

[gabrielw1211]

Compiling Information

This week Team Lazarus spent time compiling the information from the meeting on September 9th with community stakeholders. We hope to use the information that we compiled to aid us in the grant writing process. Next week, we will be meeting with Ms. Debra Hawkins and Mr. John Rouse to interpret and discuss the data we collected as well as decide what our next steps will be! I look forward to seeing what is in store for Project Lazarus in the future! 

[gabrielw1211]

Meeting of the Minds!

It’s hard to believe that in just the short time spent working with Project Lazarus and the Harnett County Health Department how much I’ve learned. Working with Mr. John Rouse and Ms. Debra Hawkins on implementing this initiative has been an eye opening experience. During the previous 3 weeks team Lazarus actively worked on an event that was held on Tuesday, September 9th. Essentially, this was a “meeting of the minds” comprised of community stakeholders. In attendance was a variety of people from different professions within the community such as, law enforcement, schools, prescribers and leaders within the faith based community. The goal of this meeting was to raise awareness about prescription drug misuse and abuse in the community as well as to engage the group in discussion about ways that each of them can be apart of prevention, surveillance, enforcement, and treatment of prescription drug abuse. 

The luncheon began with a presentation by Mr. Fred Wells Brason II. During which, he spoke about the Project Lazarus Model which consists of three core components which are: public awareness, coalition action, data and evaluation that must always be present in the model. Additionally, there are another seven components which are community education, provider education, hospital ED policies, Diversion control, pain patient support, harm reduction, and lastly addiction treatment. Each of these seven components are chosen based on the specific needs of the community. Mr. Brason emphasized the fact that Project Lazarus is a community-based program and does not function off of a “cookie cutter” model. In essence, every community is different and their environmental situation must be evaluated in order to determine the specific needs of the community so that Project Lazarus can be successfully implemented. An important part of this initiative is going to be community education, as Mr. Brason stated, the perception and behaviors around sharing medications must be changed which can be done only through educating people in the community. Mr. Brason also spoke about stigma in regards to prescription drug abuse. A problem that we see today is that addiction is treated differently than other diseases. This has resulted in more people choosing not to seek help for their addiction problem. I feel that this is an issue that can only be resolved through educating the community and helping them to understand that people do not make a conscious decision to become addicted to a drug. 

Prior to this meeting, I had given little thought, if any at all to how drug addiction effects small communities. However, in Mr. Brason’s presentation he pointed out that if you live in a small town and you have a drug addiction there is essentially nowhere for you to run to get away from your problem. In a small community this is not an issue that can be simply resolved by moving from one side of town to another. Even if conditions were at their best and you move to another side of town you are likely to still be faced with the same issue. For this reason, the point Mr. Brason made stating that you can’t just change one individual, you have to change the community as a whole has stuck with me. This changed my perspective on prescription drug abuse because before I thought of drug addiction as being a personal problem or a family problem, not a problem that a community needs to come together to fix. Mr. Brasons’ presentation of the facts provided those in attendance with information so that they could then begin brainstorming on ways that they feel they could work in each of their sectors to implement this project.

Following the presentation, each of the members from my team were placed into pairs and were given the task of facilitating a discussion about ways each of the community stakeholders could play a role in increasing awareness about prescription drug abuse and brainstorm ideas about how to most effectively heighten surveillance of prescription drugs, as well as think about ways to treat those who may suffer from addiction in respect to their positions in the community. The group that I helped to facilitate was primarily composed of people within the faith community and pharmacy students from Campbell University. We had a strong discussion that resulted in a plethora of great information and ideas. One of the ideas that was proposed in regards to raising awareness was that the health coordinator at one of the local churches could make it a point to educate youth and parents about the dangers of prescription drugs. I was shocked that a health coordinator existed as a position within the church. Ideally, churches are a great resource for helping to educate the community; because there are many people that attend of all ages. We recently discussed in class what the role of the church should be when partnering with public health organizations or if they should even be partners at all. At the time, when asked to discuss, I believe that I automatically assumed that it is primarily the role of the pastor to deliver information to the congregation and the community. However, after hearing the suggestion that health coordinators within the faith communities could play a role in the delivery of information to congregations I feel that this is one avenue that should be explored more thoroughly. Although, a health coordinator is still directly associated with the church, it is their duty to provide health education to the congregation, which may result in making education about particularly sensitive subjects more palatable. 

The pharmacy students also provided great insight on the Controlled Substance Reporting System (CSRS). This is a statewide system that physicians' and pharmacists have access to that has the ability to identify people who may be abusing prescription drugs. The pharmacy students suggested that improved communication between physicians and pharmacists in combination with utilization of this system would help to prevent and treat prescription drug abuse. Also, they suggested that law enforcement become more involved in regulating “pill mills” in rural counties. Pill mills are defined as clinics, physicians, or pharmacies that prescribe or dispense narcotics inappropriately or for non-medical reasons. The pharmacy students have become aware that this seems to be a frequent problem in pharmacies in rural communities. Information like this is helpful because i’m sure there are many people who are not even aware of pill mills or why they pose a threat. Just by regulating prescriptions and raising awareness that “pill mills” do exist in rural communities can help to reduce prescription drug abuse. 

Overall, this event was a success! A general consensus was reached that more meetings like this one were needed to help not only bring awareness to this issue but to hear the thoughts of even more of the community. With the knowledge gained through hearing what people who are actively involved in the community on a daily basis feel is important to the success of Project Lazarus is going to be truly invaluable. I am more excited than ever before to be working with Project Lazarus. I truly feel that this campaign has the opportunity to help shed light on areas that need more work in Harnett county. By far my favorite aspect of the program is the fact that it is a community-based program. Prior to entering the Master of Science Public Health program this concept was unknown to me. Now, I can see how it can be effective and that generally people want to do what is best for their community. When I entered into this program my goal was to educate myself so that I may be able to one day go out into rural communities and make a change. I’m still in disbelief that after only one month of being in the MSPH program and working with Project Lazarus I am already making great strides towards that goal. I learn best by being shown what to do and then being given the opportunity to put what i’ve learned to use in a practical manor; and that is exactly what has happened. I could not be more pleased with the success of the event, and I hope that the information we compiled from our community stakeholders will provide us with a solid foundation that will show us in which direction Project Lazarus needs to go next. 

[michellelhanna-blog]

I’m standing here sweating, trying to get 26 people to change the world!!

drtillman (via michellelhanna)

[gabrielw1211]

Team Lazarus: Update

This week, Team Lazarus met with the crime prevention officer from the Harnett County Sheriff department. During our meeting, we learned a lot of new information. He told us about how prescription drugs are becoming more common within the school system. Specifically, the fact that there is a large presence of prescription drugs in middle schools at this time. I never would have thought that prescription drugs would be an issue in such a young population. As a group, we would have expected there to be a greater presence in high schools. This was great information to hear from someone who has more of a presence within the community, and can provide a perspective from law enforcement in Harnett County.

We also discovered through talking with him that the Sheriff’s department actually has a prescription drug drop off bin located at their station. People from the community are able to bring their prescription drugs to the Sheriff department and safely dispose of them FREE of charge. So far, in the two weeks that the prescription drop off box has been available it seems to have shown great success within the community, with a very limited amount of advertisement. In such a short time frame, there has been an abundance of prescription medications that have been dropped off. I believe this shows that the community is ready and willing to embrace this initiative. After this meeting, it is evident that there is a lot to learn about prescription drug overdoses. I am excited to hear from more of the people within the community and learn more about where they see Project Lazarus in the future and what goals they would like to accomplish through this initiative on next Tuesday.