How Langone's drug education program reaches youth across the city

In the middle of one Worsening overdose crisis in New York CityThrough NYU Langone Health's Prevention Education Partnership, healthcare providers have worked with over 500 schools and community programs to deliver drug and alcohol education courses. Last month, NYU Langone received a $600,000 scholarship from the Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation to maintain PEP for the next three years.

Larissa Laskowski, an emergency physician at NYU Langone, founded PEP with her mentor Lewis Goldfrank and colleague Aaron Hultgren. In an interview with WSN, Laskowski said she was inspired to develop the program after witnessing a student fall into a coma due to an alcohol overdose.

“We’re trying to change the way we talk to young people about drugs and alcohol,” Laskowski said. “If everyone felt more open, honest and comfortable talking about drugs – illegal drugs and prescription drugs – then everyone would benefit.”

The program facilitates discussions – shaped PEP talks – between students and medical professionals to present tactics for recognizing and treating substance abuse. PEP offers four pre-packaged curricula on fentanyl, alcohol and Xanax, marijuana and nicotine. Healthcare providers discuss real-life examples of substance abuse cases, host question-and-answer sessions with students, and conduct hands-on activities such as: B. comparing the alcohol content of different alcohols by volume.

Essex Street Academy, a public high school on the Lower East Side, regularly hosts PEP Talks to both maintain the drug and alcohol curriculum and incorporate a professional's perspective on specific topics, depending on the needs of the student body. Jackson Shafer, a teacher at the school, was one of the first to host a PEP talk. Since then the initiative has… Providing over 600 PEP lectures to more than 17,000 people.

“The most valuable part was the questions and answers,” Shafer said in an interview with WSN. “That was wild because you just realized the real misconceptions that they had, and it was so meaningful and impactful for the students to actually be able to ask an emergency physician about what they were observing.”

In January, New York City passed a law All schools must carry naloxone, an emergency medication used to treat opioid overdoses – a law that Laskowski said PEP has been pushing for for years. PEP now offers training on administering naloxone as a hands-on activity during fentanyl-focused PEP discussions.

In assessing the program, Shafer cited student survey data that consistently confirmed this less inclined to consider substance use after the PEP training, adding that he was surprised by the students' willingness to ask questions about their own experiences. Shafer pointed to an incident in which a student used a lesson from a PEP lecture when he was hospitalized a week later.

“He asked them not to give him addictive opioid painkillers because he didn't want to go through that experience,” Shafer said. “It was, overwhelmingly, a truly amazing example of how that training was immediately implemented.”

Contact Audrey Abrahams at [email protected].