Category Archives: Resources

By: Anne Mathews Younes, Director, Division of Prevention, Traumatic Stress, and Special Programs
 
The people of Boston have shown incredible resilience in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings on April 15. I have firsthand knowledge of this strength and sense of community. I lived in Boston for 25 years and I ran in and completed the Boston Marathon some years ago.
The Marathon brings a diverse group of people together as a community to celebrate persistence and accomplishment. It is that same sense of community and resilience that will help people cope with … Continue reading →

The Office of Indian Alcohol and Substance Abuse (OIASA) would like to recognize April as Sexual Assault/Awareness Month.  Sexual Assault involves unwanted sexual contact that affects people of all genders, age, ethnicity and sexual orientation.  Specifically, Native American women are suffering tremendously from this form of violence within their communities.   According to the Department of Justice, “Nearly half of all Native American women have been raped, beaten, or stalked by an intimate partner; one in three will be raped in their lifetime; and on some reservations, women are murdered at … Continue reading →

You are invited to attend SAMHSA’s April Advisory Committee Meetings. All meetings are open to the public and can be found on the registration page.  
April 10, 2013 | SAMHSA’s Advisory Committee for Women’s Services Meeting, Kana Enomoto, Principal Deputy Administrator, Chair
9 a.m.–5:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time and may also be accessed via teleconference at 888-677-8206; passcode: SAMHSA
Agenda will include

A report from the Associate Administrator for Women’s Services and Chair of the ACWS
Updates from the SAMHSA Women’s Coordinating Committee &  Office of Behavioral Health Equity
Discussion of Girls in Transition and … Continue reading →

By: Suzanne Fields, MSW, LICSW, Senior Advisor on Health Care Financing
 
Each day we wake up to the news, we are reminded of the compelling reasons why affordable care is a fundamental necessity.  Behind every statistic is a real life story that affects us all in one way or another.  Almost half of Americans will have a mental illness in their lifetime. Thirty-eight thousand Americans die by suicide each year. Today, less than one in five children and adolescents with diagnosable mental health problems receive the treatment they need. According to … Continue reading →

By: Doug Tipperman, SAMHSA Lead Public Health Advisor
 
Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of disease, disability, and death in the US.  Despite overall declines in smoking, people with mental illness or substance abuse disorders smoke at significantly higher rates than the rest of the population.  As a result, many of them will suffer from tobacco related illnesses and die prematurely.  Data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) indicate the following findings:

Adults experiencing mental illness or a substance use disorder account for nearly 40 percent of … Continue reading →

By Marla Hendriksson, Director of SAMHSA Office of Communications
 
SAMHSA’s Project Evolve continues to move toward a new improved SAMHSA.gov.  The “customer first” approach strives to ensure that SAMHSA.gov users are an integral part of the process with feedback driving improvements to SAMHSA.gov.  We need your feedback to help us organize the lower level content of our webpages.
Since fall 2011, we have been posting Project Evolve progress updates, asking for your help and participation, and seeking your comments, feedback, and suggestions.  So far, three rounds of online card sorting exercises have … Continue reading →

 
By Frances M. Harding, Director, SAMHSA’s Center for Substance Abuse Prevention
 
According to a recent report from SAMHSA’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health between the early 2000′s and 2011, fewer adolescents were exposed to drug or alcohol use prevention messages in the past year through media and school sources.  In fact, in 2011, 25 percent of adolescents did not receive prevention messages through media or school sources and 40 percent of adolescents did not talk with their parents about the dangers of substance use. Adolescents are subjected to influences that … Continue reading →

By Frances M. Harding, Director, SAMHSA’s Center for Substance Abuse Prevention
 
A youth’s perception of risks associated with substance use is an important determinant of whether he or she engages in substance use.
A recent SAMHSA National Survey on Drug Use and Health Report surfaced several important perceptions among adolescents aged 12 to 17. Binge drinking can be categorized as having five or more alcoholic drinks once or twice a week. The good news is that the percentage of adolescents who perceived great risk from binge alcohol use has increased from 38.2 percent … Continue reading →

The keynote address at last week’s 2013 Public Health Law research (PHLR) annual meeting was from Pamela Hyde, JD, administrator of the federal Substance Abuse and Mental health Services Administration.
View the Q&A transcript here.

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Written by: Angela Rampton
Thousands of lives are lost each year due to drunk, drugged, or distracted driving, and these numbers don’t even take into account the harm done to families and friends who are left behind.
Each year a proclamation is made declaring December to be National Impaired Driving Prevention month to raise awareness of the devastating effect this problem has on our nation, and to help highlight the steps we can take to prevent it.
In this year’s proclamation, President Obama urges families to “talk about the risks and set clear … Continue reading →