Wellspring Center for Prevention
Promoting Healthy Living Through Education, Training & Advocacy
Addiction News & Policy Update for Week Ending January 21, 2022
NYC spending $730K to install vending machines that dispense naloxone, clean needles
A pilot program in New York City will install public health vending machines (PHVM) which will dispense products like naloxone and clean needles in an effort to help those who are "disproportionately burdened" by overdoses.Marijuana legalization fuels rise in accidental exposure to children, study finds
Legalization of marijuana in Canada led to a nearly nine-fold increase in emergency room visits among children in one of the country's provinces who were accidentally exposed to the drug, a study published Friday by JAMA Network Open found.
With coronavirus infections surging in Massachusetts, some addiction and mental health treatment programs are especially hard hit. Many are reverting back to policies put in place early in the pandemic, such as telemedicine. Some have stopped accepting new patients altogether.
Study finds tobacco imagery persists in TV, movies and music videos viewed by young audiences
It's no surprise that 2020 was a big year for streaming — in a scary, unprecedented year, entertainment provided viewers with a source of escape and comfort while staying at home.
What types of mental health apps actually work? A sweeping new analysis takes stock of the evidence
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have spent years making sure that their meditation app, called the Healthy Minds Program, passes clinical muster and delivers positive outcomes. Designing studies to test the app's efficacy led Simon Goldberg, an assistant professor at UW, to confront the mountain of thousands of studies of different mobile mental health tools, including apps, text-message based support, and other interventions