The Naloxone Initiative: Educating High Schoolers to Save Lives

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The United States is currently suffering from an opioid overdose epidemic, with over 720,000 people dying from an opioid overdose between 1999-2022. With such a prevalent public health emergency, multiple approaches must be taken to try to reduce the number of deaths, as well as the rate of use. Opioid use disorder is a medical condition that needs evidence-based treatments, but stigma complicates the issue. Reducing stigma is important to improve the rates of prevention and treatment. Harm reduction is also an important part of the equation, along with prevention strategies, such as prescription drug monitoring programs, efforts to increase access through broadband, and educational programs like the Naloxone Education Initiative, a program that teaches high school students how to administer lifesaving aid to overdose victims.

I recently had a chance to speak with the program’s co-founder Suhanee Mitragotri, who is currently a senior at Harvard College studying neuroscience and global health and health policy. Based out of the Gillian Reny Stepping Strong Center for Trauma Innovation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the Naloxone Education Initiative educates participants about opioids and the current opioid crisis, teaches them how to recognize the signs of an overdose, how to administer naloxone to someone, and where to find naloxone within their specific community. Listen to our conversation or read the transcript below.

Listen to the Podcast:

The Naloxone Education Initiative focuses on educating Massachusetts high schoolers on opioid use disorder and equips them with lifesaving skills and knowledge that will last for the rest of their lives. Trainings typically last 15-20 minutes, so if you are interested, reach out to Suhanee Mitragotri or Dr. Scott Weiner here. They hope to expand their initiative nationwide.

 

Read the Transcript:

Karsen DeWeese   0:54 
I would love if you could tell us a little bit about yourself and what inspired you to co-found the Naloxone Education Initiative. 

Suhanee Mitragotri  1:03 
Absolutely, yeah. So I’m an undergrad at Harvard, standing Neuroscience and global health and health policy, and I’ve had a passion for mental health since a pretty young age. I previously served as a volunteer in a mental health helpline, and I think especially with naloxone becoming available over the counter in 2023, I became very interested a couple years ago in starting to explore the opioid crisis. And really understanding the barriers that currently exist and sort of, you know, what has shaped this public health crisis to what it is now today? And one of the things I quickly noticed with naloxone is that despite its availability over the counter, a lot of people don’t really know what it is, or don’t know how to find it, how to use it. And so, I realized that even though naloxone is available, it’s not maybe being used as much as it could be if people knew about it. And that’s kind of where the educational component comes in and why I was inspired to found the Naloxone Education Initiative, which basically teaches youth how to use naloxone. 

Karsen DeWeese   2:09 
Yeah, that’s really great. I completely agree. I don’t think, around me at least because I’m based in Kansas, that I’ve really heard almost any education initiatives around it. So I think this is really fantastic, especially as an MPH student. Now that we’ve kind of touched on the background, can you describe what the Naloxone Education Initiative is, and what its main goals are, and maybe your hopes and dreams for it? 

Suhanee Mitragotri  2:37 
Yeah, absolutely. So the Naloxone Education Initiative is a program designed to expand opioid and naloxone education, specifically into high school health classrooms. Because I’m based in Massachusetts, most of our work has been focused on Massachusetts. But I think the larger goal in the future is to expand to other states and really make this something that’s happening across the United States. The main goals are really to teach students about opioids, how to recognize the signs of an opioid overdose and then how to respond using naloxone. And also provide them with other information about naloxone, like how it works and where they can find it in their community. So the goal really here is to increase general awareness around opioids and naloxone, so that when youth go out into the community and maybe encounter someone who is overdosing, they have the ability to respond and feel empowered to do so. 

Karsen DeWeese   3:28 
I would definitely have loved to have had that experience whenever I was in high school. So, since you’re focusing specifically on high schoolers, can you talk about how the opioid crisis has impacted youth and why it’s really important to focus on this demographic in particular? 

Suhanee Mitragotri  3:45 
Recently we’re seeing, you know, a major increase in the number of young people using opioids, and there was a study in 2022 that found that every week in 2022, about 22 high school age students died due to drug overdose, and this was primarily due to fentanyl. And so that really, you know, pointed out this issue that young people, high schoolers, even middle schoolers, are dying due to opioids. And it’s because you know, it’s becoming increasingly available to them through the illicit drug market. We also talk a lot about like pressed pills, which are now very common among youth. Pressed pills are these, you know, counterfeit pills that look a lot like prescription pills, but they’re not, they contain extremely high doses of fentanyl, often to the point that one pill can cause someone to overdose. We really think education and awareness, of course, is relevant and important to everyone, but especially to youth who are increasingly becoming introduced to the opportunities to engage in the illicit drug market and it’s becoming increasingly prevalent. So I think that this is like a great demographic to target specifically with this intervention. 

Karsen DeWeese   4:49 
Absolutely, that makes complete sense. For people who maybe don’t know about this, can you maybe go into a little bit more depth on what naloxone specifically is, and then how it works to reverse those overdoses that we’re talking about? 

Suhanee Mitragotri  5:06 
So naloxone is an opioid overdose reversal agent and basically what it does is when someone has opioids in their system, like they’ve consumed opioids, those opioids are binding to opioid receptors in the brain and exerting their impacts, right? And so what happens when someone takes naloxone, is naloxone binds to these opioid receptors much more strongly than opioids can. And what that essentially does is it displaces opioids from these receptors and reverses the overdose in that way. So that’s why naloxone essentially is considered a versatile agent, because it can basically prevent opioids from binding to these receptors and therefore reverse the overdose. 

Karsen DeWeese   5:45 
That’s really awesome to hear. I did not know that, so thank you for that. So whenever you were developing the curriculum for this initiative, what key elements did you include? And maybe if you have any ideas on what you would like to see included in the future, that would be also awesome to hear. 

Suhanee Mitragotri  6:05 
Yeah, for sure. So in terms of like developing the curriculum, so I’m working with Dr. Scott Weiner at Brigham Women’s Hospital so we developed the curriculum together. And we definitely took inspiration from, you know, existing trainings that are already out there. Dr. Weiner has substantial experience in conducting trainings for the community in general on naloxone, and so we took inspiration from those, including just general trainings that are available by the company Narcan. Our main curriculum is, you know, kinda shaped around this idea of like first teaching students what opioids are, you know, the different ways people acquire opioids and specifically the impacts of opioids have on the body. And then we switch to a discussion about, you know, naloxone. Like, how does naloxone sort of reverse an overdose, like I mentioned before. And how do you use naloxone? And so we do a demonstration of the naloxone nasal spray, which is the formulation of naloxone that’s available over the counter. And then we also talk about a couple additional important things. One is like, where is naloxone available in the community? We specifically talk about Massachusetts, like where can you find naloxone. We also talk about the Good Samaritan law, which basically offers protection, legal protection for those who administer naloxone and call 911 in a situation, in an overdose. And we really like to emphasize this law because it oftentimes, young people especially, are scared to call or ask for help or use naloxone out of fear of getting in trouble. So we really like to emphasize this law. And then we talk about stigma associated with substance use, and how harm reduction and like learning how to use naloxone, can help to dismantle some of the stigma. So these are some of the key components of our curriculum and like what we do in our trainings. I think moving forward, we would love to talk more about harm reduction in general. Hopefully in the future, naloxone will be available to students on campus. Right now, most schools, like students don’t have access to naloxone on campus directly, and we’re hoping that in future that’s not the case, that students actually can access naloxone while they’re in school, and therefore we would love to include more information on that. So these are all things moving forward that we would love to see. But yeah, as of now, like our curriculum mainly consists of the elements I mentioned before. 

Karsen DeWeese   8:15 
I think that’s wonderful. As an MPH person, I love talking about harm reduction and how important that is, so I think that’s fantastic. Since you talked about, they have to go out in the community and know where it is to go access it, can you talk about how they go buy it, or maybe where it is for them? 

Suhanee Mitragotri  8:35 
For sure, yeah. So specifically in Massachusetts, there is actually a very wonderful organization called You Can. And You Can is basically, it’s an organization that allows you to order Narcan for free online. Son basically you just put in your address, your home address or whatever address you feel most comfortable putting in, and you can get Narcan delivered for free to your doorstep, and it’s a wonderful resource. 
Especially for people who may not want to go in person to get naloxone, but prefer to get it, you know, via mail. We also talk about community settings such as libraries, community centers, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health also has a wonderful online map that basically tells you where you can get naloxone in different regions of Massachusetts, which is super helpful. We also talked about a recent initiative that was led by the Department of Public Health to install vending machines in Boston and also Western Massachusetts, that basically dispense naloxone for free. So these are a couple places, and then also obviously pharmacies over-the-counter is another major place. So we we like to, you know, highlight these locations where students can find naloxone. And we also like really encourage students to look into specifically in their town, in their community. Like where can you find naloxone and where is it accessible? Where is it not? 

Karsen DeWeese   9:52 
I think that’s a really great point to make as well that it’s available for free and that you can get it sent somewhere. It doesn’t even have to be your own house and things like that. I feel like that’s a great way to make younger people or people who maybe are more hesitant to be prepared in these instances. So, thinking along those lines, how receptive have the students been to this topic? And then also how have parents felt about the initiative? Have you had a lot of support or had to deal with any pushback at all? 

Suhanee Mitragotri  10:25 
Yeah, so students overall have been very receptive. So we collect feedback from students at the end of our presentations when we go into schools for the trainings, and you know the feedback has been very positive overall. You know, students said that they feel empowered to address an overdose situation if they encounter one in the future. Some students say that in the past, they’ve actually encountered someone who’s overdosing and didn’t know what to do and now they feel like they know how to respond. We’ve had students saying, you know, the training is fairly simple and straightforward, so, you know, learning how to use naloxone is, is pretty easy. And that was also really good feedback, because it speaks to the feasibility of this education. In terms of parents, I think we’ve seen a mix. In general, parents and community members. Some communities have been very receptive and very excited. Others there’s been a bit more pushback. So we’ve seen a mix. Some schools have also like required parental permission in order for their student to receive a naloxone education. So it’s definitely varied from community to community. I would say overall it’s been very, receptiveness has been very positive, but at times we have faced a little bit of pushback. 

Karsen DeWeese   11:30 
Can you talk about how you guys have handled that push back? And any like tips or tricks, if people are also trying to do this, that you could maybe give them on that problem. 

Suhanee Mitragotri  11:40 
Yeah, absolutely. I think in terms of like addressing push back, I think one of the major points of pushback is people saying, you know, if my child now knows how to use naloxone, will this encourage them to use opioids? And that’s like, not only a concern that people have had within like youth, it’s been like a concern that’s been, you know, cited before in general. And research has shown that actually expanding access to naloxone and teaching people how to use naloxone does not increase adolescent opioid use. And so we really like to emphasize that. I know also sometimes parents and some people you know, say like, “oh, like my child doesn’t use opioids. So, like, what’s the point of them learning how to use naloxone?” And to that, we really like to emphasize the idea that it’s not just about like if your child specifically uses opioids, it’s about, you know, empowering them and equipping them with the skills to respond to an overdose that they encounter anywhere, right? It could be school. It could be their peers. It could be in the community. It can be a stranger. It can be when they go off to college in the future. I mean, this education that they get now will, like, stay with them forever. So we really, we really like to emphasize the scope of that. I think in general, every part of this initiative has required so much communication, dialogue and conversation, so we’ve talked with town boards of health, we’ve talked with school admin., talk with, you know, policy makers, so. I think at any point in time, there’s always been some sort of pushback or some concern, and a lot of times addressing that has just required having an open conversation and being willing to hear people out and address their concerns. 

Karsen DeWeese   13:09 
Yeah, I think that’s a really great way to approach that and be like we know that this is a concern, we’re well aware. And it makes sense, right? But, we have some proof for you that you don’t have to worry about this. So I’m sure that helps out and makes people feel a lot better about things. With that, what challenges have you faced in implementing this education in the high school health classrooms and have you overcome those? So actually like, integrating it into the school systems. 

Suhanee Mitragotri  13:40 
Yeah, I think like one of the challenges we originally faced is like when we reached out to schools, we weren’t getting much response back or we were getting schools that weren’t interested. And to address that, actually one thing we did is we got into contact with boards of health in each of these towns, and had these conversations first with public health officials, to explain this initiative. And for the most part, you know, boards of health, departments of health in these towns are very interested in this. And then they put us into contact with the right people at the schools. And so having that sort of, support from health departments before going into schools was very helpful, I think, in increasing our chances of getting into schools. I think also really emphasizing the feasibility and ease with which this can be integrated into the existing health education curriculum is super important. So for us, our training is 15 to 20 minutes in duration. And so when we pitch it to schools, we say, “We have this training, it’s 15 to 20 minutes. We would love the opportunity to come in during one of your lessons if you can just give us that much of your time.” And I think really emphasizing how easy it is to just quickly deliver this training is so important. And I think that has also convinced a lot more schools and lot more health classrooms to let us come in and deliver the training. 

Karsen DeWeese   14:50 
I’m sure they’re like, “Oh, it’s not any extra work for us? Fantastic.” 

Suhanee Mitragotri  14:54 
Right. 

Karsen DeWeese   14:55 
So, now let’s kind of shift gears a little bit, away from the school specifically and talk about the partnerships that you formed with organizations like Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Naloxone Project. Can you just describe those partnerships and maybe how they came about? 

Suhanee Mitragotri  15:13 
Yeah, absolutely. So we partnered with Brigham Women’s Hospital, the Stepping Strong Center for Trauma Innovation, and the Naloxone Project when we were developing our curriculum. Like all these hospitals, organizations, were crucial in the development of the curriculum. Like a lot of them provided us with feedback on the curriculum slides. Everything went through multiple iterations, like the final version that is present now is like, after many, many revisions from so many stakeholders. These partnerships are really important in helping us develop the curriculum in the first place. I think also it was really nice to be able to work with these organizations and hospitals because they have experience in naloxone trainings in general, in like community settings and so for me, as someone who’s just coming into this sort of brand new, it was very helpful to hear from them and hear their advice and insights from, you know, trainings they’ve done and really be able to take that and shape it towards a younger audience. 

Karsen DeWeese   16:06 
That’s really great. I’m sure they were excited, as well, whenever you talked about taking it to those high schoolers. So how have these partnerships helped advance the goals of the Naloxone Education Initiative? 

Suhanee Mitragotri  16:19 
Yeah, I think, like for sure, like these partnerships have, you know, really helped us understand like what needs to be included in the training. So like, you know, a lot of even the additional insights we include in our training now, like the Good Samaritan Law and like, where to find naloxone, like all these kinds of things. These were all like suggestions and feedbacks and like molded based on feedback that was given by these partnerships. So I think they really helped to shape our curriculum and make it, you know, more inclusive. Make it more accommodating to different communities and, and really improved it in that sense, which I think was super beneficial. 

Karsen DeWeese   16:53 
Yeah, absolutely. That’s really awesome. So, you mentioned talking with legislators earlier, and having to have a lot of conversations with them. And you helped to author a bill that mandates opioid and naloxone education in high school. So can you share more about the legislative effort itself, and its current status and the extra work, I’m sure that went into that? 

Suhanee Mitragotri  17:18 
Yeah, so as you mentioned, Dr. Weiner and I sort of drafted a bill that would require opioid and naloxone education in all Massachusetts high schools. And we brought this draft to a senator in the Massachusetts legislature. And you know, we asked him, would you be interested in filing this? And we were very grateful and fortunate to have him be super supportive of our work and he did file it this January in the new legislative session. And we also had a representative in the House also file the same bill. And so it’s been wonderful to have so much legislative support. We’ve had a lot of other legislators sign on and co-sponsor the bills as well, which has been wonderful. And now, like in terms of its current status, it’s been assigned to a committee and it’s going to be reviewed by more legislators, you know that’ll be a hearing coming up where we’ll testify. We’ve been collecting written testimonies in support of the bill from community members, from people who have been involved in the initiative for the past, like year and a half. So, it’s been really wonderful to like sort of build this coalition and bring everyone together. And we’re excited to continue advocating for this. I think this could be really huge because if this bill does become a law, it will basically require all high schoolers to learn about opioids and naloxone, and every student will leave, like will graduate from Massachusetts high school knowing how to respond to an overdose, which I think is really powerful. 

Karsen DeWeese   18:38 
Yeah, I think that’s really wonderful. I know it’s purely speculative at this point, right? Because the legislative sessions are happening. But do you have high hopes that it’s going to get passed, or any inklings at all? Or is it just that you’re like, I don’t know, it could go either way. 

Suhanee Mitragotri  18:54 
I mean, I think it always like, it’s hard to predict and I mean it could really go any way. I think at the moment it seems like there is a lot of support for it. And not just community support, but also like we’ve had a lot of co-sponsors. So, I’m optimistic that it will pass, but I feel like you just, you never know. So I guess we’ll see. 

Karsen DeWeese   19:13 
That makes complete sense, yeah. I’m always a little curious on where people are at currently on how they feel when they have put in all that effort on stuff like that. So I’m like, I’m hopeful, but we’ll see. 

Suhanee Mitragotri  19:25 
Yeah. 

Karsen DeWeese   19:26 
So what advice do you have for individuals and communities looking to advocate for either, similar initiatives that are focusing on naloxone, maybe in other states, or just ones that are talking about harm reduction in general? 

Suhanee Mitragotri  19:41 
I think what’s really important, like kind of what I mentioned before, is like being able to initiate these conversations with communities directly. I think you know a big part of this initiative really started with just reaching out to schools, reaching out to towns and being, you know, super open with them saying, you know, this is a new initiative, something I’m passionate about. Can we have a conversation about this? Is there any possibility to implement this in your town? And really being open to meeting communities where they’re at. I think that’s crucial. And it’s also really important to note that like, it’s not gonna be easy. I think there’s so much stigma around substance use and opioids, the opioid crisis, that initiating any sort of conversation, especially among youth, is not gonna be easy. And I realized that through my work, but being patient and being willing to put in the work and being willing to hear out people’s concerns, address them. I think that’s crucial and it takes time. Like this initiative has been building over a long period of time and it’s, you know, required a lot of collaboration, communication. So, I think patience is is very much key in any sort of initiative like this. 

Karsen DeWeese   20:47 
Oh yeah, completely agree. Public health in general, I feel like, you gotta have some patience. 

Suhanee Mitragotri  20:51 
Yeah, for sure. Yes. 

Karsen DeWeese   20:54 
Besides the people who you’ve already talked about, right, on your partners and the people you’ve worked with, was there anybody else that you spoke with who really gave some great advice that you implemented at the start, when you were first getting started with all of this? 

Suhanee Mitragotri  21:12 
Yeah, I think one specific person definitely that comes to mind is Dr. Larissa Laskowski. She’s a physician at NYU, and she has sort of led a very similar initiative in New York to teach, you know, students in schools, how to respond to overdose? And when I talked with her last year, you know, she’s been working on this initiative for years. And so she was way further along than I was. And so she provided me some really good insight into like how to get into schools and kinda emphasized similar things as like patience and, like being willing to have these open conversations with people. So she was super, super helpful in sort of doing that, and also just very motivating, very inspirational. Like I definitely look up to her a lot, and the work she has done so far, and so yeah. 

Karsen DeWeese   22:01 
Absolutely. It’s always great to hear who other people have heard from. I think that helps people be like, okay, yeah, there’s always going to be somebody who wants to reach out, you know, and give that helping hand. I think that is reassuring for everybody to find out about. I don’t know if you have any actual like statistics or anything like that, but in general, can you talk about what impact the initiative has had so far and then any maybe success stories? Or feedback that really emphasized the point and drove it home. Or maybe any stories that you specifically have gathered to use in support of that legislation? 

Suhanee Mitragotri  22:41 
Yeah, absolutely. I guess in terms of like statistics, I mean I guess I don’t have any specific statistics to offer, but I will say like since we started our initiative and started our trainings, we’ve educated over like 300 to 400 students and we have plans to educate about, over 1,000 more in the upcoming ones as well. So we’ve been really fortunate to be able to get into a lot of schools, especially over the past couple months. We’ve also received endorsements on our curriculum from 14 organizations across Massachusetts and the United States, which has been wonderful. And many of these are harm reduction organizations that really have supported our work and provided us with a lot of feedback, which has been wonderful. I think it’s also been really nice to hear from students directly, like through our feedback forms and really, it’s been very positive as I mentioned. Like a lot of students have found the training to be very helpful and educators as well, have you know written to us, saying like they’ve really enjoyed having this come into the classrooms and really feel like the training was super beneficial. 

Karsen DeWeese   23:39 
That’s awesome, great. So, I kind of already asked this a little bit on where you see the program going in the future and trying to expand, but do you have any other thoughts on that? And maybe any ideas on if you could make it a digital one even? 

Suhanee Mitragotri  23:57 
Yeah, absolutely. I think like moving forward, I guess the most immediate future goal is really to get this to all Massachusetts high schools. But then I think ultimately the goal is to get this like everywhere and really expand it across the country and even globally, so that’s definitely the goal. I think also like training, we’re currently training more undergraduate students to help deliver our trainings, so like trying to just expand the team on our end and make it bigger. And I’m also hoping, as you mentioned to, I think, expand our impact digitally as well. Like our slides and everything are currently available online. Whoever asks for them, we give them, they’re very much like Open Access. We’re just trying to spread the information to as many people as we can. But I think definitely developing like sort of online training platforms and really making that easier to access would be super beneficial, especially considering we want to expand this nationally moving forward. 

Karsen DeWeese   24:51 
That’s super exciting. I love that sort of stuff. So I’ll have to ask and see if there’s anybody who wants to take this on at my university since I’m heading on out pretty much at this point. But is there anything that you personally have learned from your experience with this? How maybe it shaped your perspective on public health and harm reduction in general? Or if you have other initiative ideas that maybe you just don’t even have time for, anything like that? 

Suhanee Mitragotri  25:23 
Yeah, I think like one of the main things I’ve learned from doing this initiative is the importance of education in public health. I think a lot of times we don’t talk about how important health information, health knowledge is. And I think this initiative really like hones in on that. It’s like about educating people so that people have the information they need to respond to an overdose. And it really also like talks about the responsibility each of us plays in public health, right? As I mentioned before, by learning how to use naloxone like you are learning how to potentially save someone’s life one day. And that’s, that’s incredibly powerful, and that’s what we’re trying to teach youth. I’m very passionate about harm reduction and I think harm reduction is so important, especially now to ensure that we’re prioritizing saving lives and offering non-judgmental care to people. And so, I think I’ve just gained so much insight into public health and harm reduction through being part of this initiative and I feel like I learned something new every day. [laughs] 

Karsen DeWeese   26:16 
I love that. I love feeling like I get to learn, and I’m excited to have been learning from you and gotten this chance, so thank you for that. Do you have any advice for anybody who’s listening, who want to get involved in opioid overdose prevention and education? 

Suhanee Mitragotri  26:34 
One of the things I kind of mentioned a little bit before is, it’s going to be difficult, of course, like I think just the stigma around the topic, but you just have to be willing to push forward and you know open new doors for conversations. You know, I think being willing to just have open dialogue with people is so important. I also think it’s very important to like address concerns and like try to understand where their people are coming from with their concerns. Because I think that is also very important in shaping any sort of public health initiative focused around opiate overdose prevention education. And I think also, as I mentioned, get people on your side, build your team. I think reaching out to Department of Health, health educators. I think that was super crucial in our initiative. Getting people to support us on the ground and so. And they can also connect you with the right people moving forward, so I think that’s really crucial. And also get in touch with people who are doing work on this. I would be happy to be a resource to anyone who’s interested in doing this in their state, their town, wherever it is. Like I mentioned, I talked to other doctors, I talked to people who had done this before, and that was super helpful and I would love to be that sort of mentor to other people as well. 

Karsen DeWeese   27:35 
I really love thinking about Health Communication because we’re having such a problem with health literacy in the United States right now, and so do you have any thoughts on how programs like this can maybe be a part of helping improve health literacy itself? 

Suhanee Mitragotri  27:53 
Yeah, absolutely. And I totally agree, I think one of the most pressing issues in public health right now is access to health information and ensuring people feel informed on the health of, you know, their own health, the health of others, the health of general society. I think like, initiatives like this are really important in being able to just like educate people on opioids, which you know, opiate crisis, a public health crisis, a pressing crisis in the United States. And also how to respond, right? So prepare, people like, you know, actions that they can take in their community. As I mentioned like, naloxone is there, it’s available over the counter, but until people know about it, it’s like it’s not gonna be used. And so I think that being able to bridge that gap, that is where health literacy comes in. That’s where health education comes in. And so, I think that that is really what, you know, our initiative aims to do. 

Karsen DeWeese   28:41 
That’s really awesome. We really covered so many things so quickly. So, is there anything that we haven’t touched on that you really are burning up and wanting to talk about? Or anything you want to shout out, including your website or anything at all like that?

Suhanee Mitragotri  28:58 
Yeah, no, I think, I think we honestly covered a lot, and I really appreciate the opportunity to share more about my initiative on this podcast. I think in terms of like the website, as I mentioned, we collaborate with Stepping Strong Center for Trauma Innovation. So more information about our initiative is on their website. As I mentioned, I’m happy to always be a resource and always be helpful to anyone who’s looking to do something similar, or looking to get more involved if you’re in Massachusetts. Or even outside Massachusetts, that want to get involved in our initiative, also happy to connect for that reason as well. 

About the Author

Karsen DeWeese
Karsen DeWeese is an intern for the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice. She is finishing her Master of Public Health degree at Kansas State University and will be graduating May 2025, with an emphasis area of physical activity and a graduate certificate in strategic health communication.
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