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.