Seminar Series

First Term Graduate Seminar in Injury Research and Policy: Overdose Prevention and Drug Control Policy

REGISTER TO ATTEND 

August 26: Course Introduction: "Drug Control Policy and Overdose Prevention"

*Please note, this session is only open to students currently pursuing the Certificate in Injury and Violence Prevention.

Olivia K. Sugarman, PhD, MPH
Assistant Scientist, Department of Health Policy and Management
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

A top priority for injury control is to ensure the broad implementation of evidence-based overdose prevention strategies. This seminar provides fundamental information about the concepts, terminology, and intervention strategies that will be covered in presentations throughout the term. Dr. Sugarman will discuss the current state of the overdose crisis and provide an overview of overdose prevention strategies. 

September 9: "Increasing Alcohol Taxes to Reduce Alcohol-Related Harms in New Mexico"

*Session Co-Sponsor: Lerner Center for Public Health Advocacy

Marlene Lira, (DrPH student), MPH
Director of Research
Workit Health

New Mexico has had the highest alcohol-related mortality of all U.S. states for over 25 years, with an age-adjusted rate of alcohol-related death approximately twice the national rate. There is strong evidence that more restrictive alcohol control policies can reduce alcohol consumption and protect against a variety of alcohol-related health outcomes ranging from alcohol-related liver disease to car crashes to gun violence. Alcohol pricing policies, including increasing excise taxes, are among the most effective interventions. However, alcohol excise taxes were last increased in New Mexico in 1993. Given the disproportionate burden of alcohol-related harms experienced within the state, legislation has been introduced in the last two legislative sessions to increase alcohol taxes. This presentation will describe recent legislative efforts, challenges, and the growing political will to change course and prevent future generations from disproportionately experiencing harms from alcohol use in New Mexico.

September 16: "Overdose Fatality Review Teams"

Mallory O'Brien, PhD, MS
Associate Scientist, Department of Health Policy and Management
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Overdose Fatality Review (OFR) teams are multidisciplinary groups that share information on local overdose cases to identify patterns and provide recommendations for overdose prevention. This presentation will detail the efforts and role of OFR teams in overdose prevention.

September 23: "Policy Responses to the Volatile Drug Supply Using Xylazine as a Case Study"

Olivia K. Sugarman, PhD, MPH
Assistant Scientist, Department of Health Policy and Management
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

In this current chapter of the overdose epidemic, the illicit drug supply is an unpredictable, and heterogeneous mix of opioids and adulterants. Xylazine is a large animal veterinary sedative that has quickly spread throughout the U.S. drug supply, most often with fentanyl and is increasingly associated with fatal overdoses, severe soft tissue wounds, and serious withdrawal symptoms. Xylazine has no reversal agent, and traditional medications to treat opioid use disorder and withdrawal symptoms are less effective in relieving withdrawal symptoms. Until recently, xylazine was not a controlled substance in most states. This presentation will provide an overview of changes in the U.S. drug supply over the course of the overdose epidemic, policy responses to those changes, and how federal and state policymakers are responding to xylazine as a recent and novel adulterant in the drug supply.

 
September 30: "Methods for Identifying Emerging Drug Trends"

Nae Y. Won, PhD, MPH
Postdoctoral Fellow NIDA T32 DDET, Department of Mental Health 
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

The National Drug Early Warning System (NDEWS) is a workgroup dedicated to identifying new and emerging drug trends across the US to prevent the next drug epidemic. This presentation will introduce a novel surveillance method for identifying new drug trends and highlight the collaboration among multiple stakeholders who work together to monitor and respond to emerging drug threats.

October 7: "Harm Reduction and Treatment Use Among People at High Risk of Overdose: Results from the VOICES Survey"

Sachini Bandara, PhD, MS
Assistant Professor, Department of Mental Health
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

This presentation will provide an overview of the VOICES Survey, a survey characterizing the lived experience of 2000 + people who use drugs. The survey was conducted in partnership with 39 community organizations across 4 states. The goal of VOICES is to characterize the use of treatment and harm reduction services among a racially and ethnically and socially diverse multistate group of people at high risk for drug overdose.

October 14: "Navigating the Expanding Presence of Xylazine with Fentanyl (And Other Drug Supply Toxicity)"

Danielle German, PhD, MPH
Associate Professor, Department of Health, Behavior and Society
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

This presentation summarizes findings from mixed methods research to understand polysubstance use, experiences with xylazine, and perspectives on drug supply toxicity to inform overdose prevention and other harm reduction efforts in Baltimore and across Maryland.

October 21: Seminar Reflection -- Discussion Session

*Please note, this session is only open to students currently pursuing the Certificate in Injury and Violence Prevention.

Olivia K. Sugarman, PhD, MPH
Assistant Scientist, Department of Health Policy and Management
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

We will collectively review key concepts of overdose prevention and connect those key concepts with content from guest lectures throughout the term.

Information about the seminars, including Zoom meeting links, are available at the Johns Hopkins Calendar of Events.

Second Term Graduate Seminar in Injury Research and Policy: Occupational Safety

REGISTER TO ATTEND

October 28: "Reflections on the Minimum Data Elements Necessary to Surveil Violence in the Health Care and Fire Service Industries"

Jennifer A. Taylor, PhD, MPH, CPPS 
Arthur L. and Joanne B. Frank Professor of Environmental & Occupational Health Interim Associate Dean for Public Health Practice
Dornsife School of Public Health at Drexel University

When it comes to conducting the surveillance of violence against health care and fire service personnel, a balance needs to be struck between collecting the minimum data elements necessary to count events and the maximum necessary to describe the event details. During this session, we will explore the data elements different stakeholders may want in such a system and how we make decisions about which to include.

November 4: "Extreme Weather Trends and Secondary Impacts on Health"

*This is a hybrid seminar jointly sponsored by the Injury Center and the NIOSH-funded Johns Hopkins Education and Research Center.

Sunny Wescott, MS
Federal Emergency Response Official Chief Meteorologist
Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)

This presentation will touch on the trends in extreme weather, amplifying risks to humans and wildlife from direct impacts of debris, smoke, heat, and contaminants. Following recent changes in baseline temperatures and resource constraints, the secondary threats to emotional and physical health will continue to amplify aggression and depression swings in societal response.

This event is co-hosted by the Johns Hopkins Education and Research Center for Occupational Health and Safety and will use a different registration link.

Register to Attend

November 11: "Maryland Opioid Overdose Deaths from 2018 to 2022: Occupational Patterns and Sociodemographic Variations"

Masoumeh Amin-Esmaeili, MD
Associate Scientist, Department of Mental Health
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Among U.S. states, Maryland ranks in the top 10 for opioid overdose deaths. A growing body of literature suggests that the risk of fatal opioid overdoses varies by occupation. Using data from Maryland's State Unintentional Drug Overdose Reporting System (SUDORS), a comprehensive source on fatal overdoses, this talk will provide an overview of opioid overdose deaths in Maryland, focusing on employment status and occupation group.

November 18: "What Does Occupational Epidemiology Tell Us About Combined Exposure and Cumulative Risk?"

Mary A. Fox, PhD, MPH 
Associate Practice Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management and Department of Environmental Health and Engineering
Co-Director, Risk Sciences and Public Policy Institute
Co-Director, MPH Health Systems and Policy Concentration
Primary Investigator, Center for Advancing Research in Transportation Emissions, Energy and Health
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Risk assessment has been the primary method to inform occupational and environmental health policy and management for many types of hazards. Although often focused on one hazard at a time, risk assessment frameworks and methods have advanced toward cumulative risk assessment recognizing that exposure to a single chemical or non-chemical stressor rarely occurs in isolation. The presentation will review recent work documenting combined exposures and worker health and safety.

November 25: "Advancing Theory on the Bidirectional Relationship Between Work Injuries and Mental Health Challenges: A Socio-Cognitive Perspective"

Stephen Granger, PhD 
Assistant Professor, Department of Management
John Molson School of Business at the Concordia University

The aim of this talk will be to outline a renewed framework integrating theories from psychology to advance our understanding of the bidirectional relationship between work injuries and mental health challenges. The talk will start by highlighting key historical theoretical developments on the bidirectional relationship and how theory has stagnated in recent decades. I will then present a model focusing on theoretically driven socio-cognitive factors and present preliminary results using data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging.

December 2: "Health and Safety Risk Exposure in Hospital Nursing"

*This is a hybrid seminar jointly sponsored by the Injury Center and the NIOSH-funded Johns Hopkins Education and Research Center.

Paul E. Spector, PhD
Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Department of Psychology
University of South Florida

Nurses are exposed to all forms of physical and psychological health and safety risks, including biological hazards, chemical exposure, overuse injury, physical assault, psychosocial environment, and verbal mistreatment. I will cover the various forms of exposure, results of a long-term study of newly graduated nurses, and recent work from a study at Tampa General Hospital concerning the impact of unit understaffing.

This event is co-hosted by the Johns Hopkins Education and Research Center for Occupational Health and Safety and will use a different registration link.

Register to Attend

December 9: "Safety Climate as a Leading Indicator of Workplace Safety"

Emily (Yueng-Hsiang) Huang, PhD
Professor, Industrial-Organizational/Occupational Health Psychology
Oregon Health & Science University

Safety climate is defined as employees’ shared perceptions of the company's safety policies, procedures, and practices and the overall importance and “true” priority of safety at work. In the last 40 years, scientific literature has demonstrated that safety climate is among the strongest predictors of safety behaviors and of injury data in workgroups and entire companies. Safety climate identifies employees’ perceptions (i.e., as seen through the eyes of employees) about the real or true priority of safety as opposed to its formally espoused priority by company management. In the safety field, safety climate is used to proactively identify safety problem areas and evaluate intervention effects over time. There will be three main topics in my talk: (1) reviewing the nature and importance of safety climate; (2) describing my prior and current research on the development and validation of various climate scales (including the Total Worker Health Climate Scale and the Respectful Workplace Climate Scale); and (3) discussing the future plans of my organizational climate research.

December 16: Seminar Reflection -- Discussion Session

*Please note, this session is only open to students currently pursuing the Certificate in Injury and Violence Prevention. 

Cassandra Crifasi, PhD, MPH
Associate Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Zhiqing (Albert) Zhou, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Mental Health 
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Drs. Crifasi and Zhou will facilitate a discussion where the overall seminar series themes are explored, as well as observations and reflections from the students.

Information about the seminars, including Zoom meeting links, are available at the Johns Hopkins Calendar of Events.

Third Term Graduate Seminar in Injury Research and Policy -- Transportation

REGISTER TO ATTEND 

January 22: "Strategies for Implementing Landmark Federal Policy to Prevent Impaired Driving: Congressional Mandate for Vehicle Technology to Prevent Driver Impairment"

Instructor: Jeffrey Michael, EdD
Distinguished Scholar
Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy

Dr. Michael will provide an overview of recent legislation mandating a vehicle safety requirement for driver impairment prevention technology in all new cars.  He will provide an overview of key challenges to implementation and preview planned course sessions and special speakers who will discuss strategies for addressing these challenges. 

Dr. Michael will further explain how this course follows the discussion of impairment prevention technology that was started in the third-term 2022 course and continued with the 2023 course. With the Congressional deadline for implementation approaching in November 2024, this course will involve a set of expert speakers discussing a focused set of issues that could affect the success of the new policy.

January 29: "Vehicle Technology for Impairment Prevention"

Instructor: Natalie Draisin, MPH 
Director, North American Office and United Nations Representative
FIA Foundation

Natalie Draisin, a public health and road safety professional who has worked on the development of impairment detection technology from the academic, advocacy and technical perspectives, will discuss strategies for implementing this new countermeasure. Ms. Draisin’s current involvement with the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety (DADSS) team gives her a unique perspective on the readiness of the technology and paths to adoption. The DADSS system is a product of a unique public/private partnership initiated in 2008 to develop technology that can passively detect driver impairment and prevent vehicle operation. 

February 5: "Strategic Applications for Driver Monitoring Technologies"

Instructor: Anders Lie, PhD 
Former Board Member, European New Car Assessment Program (EuroNCAP)
Former Traffic Safety Specialist, Swedish Transport Administration

A former researcher at the Swedish Transport Administration, Dr. Lie is also among the founders of the Vision Zero/ Safe System approach.  As a Vision Zero expert, he will share his perspective on the need for a technological solution for the driver impairment problem, and as former technical member of EuroNCAP he will discuss strategies for implementing impairment detection technology in the global automobile market.  

February 12: "Outlook for Advanced Driver Monitoring Technologies"

Instructor: Nat Beuse 
Chief Safety Officer
Aurora

As a former federal vehicle rulemaking and research executive at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, current executive in the self-driving car industry, and current Board member of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Mr. Beuse will provide his perspective on the potential for driver monitoring technologies and the pathways for implementation.  

February 19: "Congressional Support for Impairment Detection Technology"

Instructor: Sophia Bock 
Legislative Assistant
Staff of Senator Ben Ray Luján, U.S. Senate

As technical staff for Senator Ben Ray Luján, the primary sponsor of Section 24220 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, Ms. Bock will discuss the legislative history of the driver impairment detection mandate and the motivations and expectations of the Senator with regard to implementation.

February 26: "Impairment Detection Technology Readiness"

Instructor: Ken Snyder 
Executive Director, Shingo Institute
Utah State Huntsman School of Business

With decades of experience in the automotive electronics industry, and current role as management consultant to the automotive industry, Mr. Snyder will share his perspective on the potential for production-ready technology meeting the requirements of the federal mandate. 

March 4: "Federal Perspective on Driver Impairment Detection"

Instructor: Jana Price, PhD 
National Resource Specialist, Office of Research and Engineering
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)

An executive in the National Transportation Safety Board, Dr. Price will discuss an NTSB crash investigation that led to recommendations regarding driver impairment detection technology. Dr. Price will also discuss the factors affecting federal mandates for safety equipment.

March 11: Discussion Session – Required for students registered for course credit

Instructor: Jeffrey Michael, EdD
Distinguished Scholar
Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy

This session is required for students pursuing the Certificate in Injury and Violence Prevention. Dr. Michael will facilitate a discussion of key issues, overlapping themes, and implementation strategies presented by the guest speakers. As with the 2022 and 2023 courses, the final session will include a summary discussion and short reports by students of their perspectives on strategies for overcoming key issues that could affect successful implementation of the Congressional mandate.

Fourth Term Graduate Seminar in Injury Research and Policy: Violence & Suicide Prevention

REGISTER TO ATTEND 

March 25: "Suicide and the Role of Lethal Means"

Paul S. Nestadt, MD  
Clinical Director
Johns Hopkins Anxiety Disorders Clinic

Associate Professor,  Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

April 1: "Pediatric Firearm Injuries"

Nichole Michaels, PhD 
Principal Investigator,  Center for Injury Research and Policy at the Abigail Wexner Research Institute
Nationwide Children's Hospital

Assistant Professor, Pediatrics
Ohio State University College of Medicine

April 8: "The Relationship Context of Partner Violence Among Adolescents and Young Adults"

Pamela A. Matson, PhD, MPH 
Research Director, Adolescent Medicine Fellowship Program

Associate Professor of Pediatrics
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine 

April 15: "Workplace Violence: Prevalence, Impact, and Antecedents" 

Zhiqing (Albert) Zhou, PhD 
Visiting Associate Professor, Department of Mental Health
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health 

April 22: "Influences of Reproductive Coercion and Abuse on Women's Sexual and Reproductive Health" 

Kamila A. Alexander, PhD, MSN/MPH, RN
Associate Director of PhD and Postdoctoral Programs

Associate Professor
Johns Hopkins School of Nursing

April 29: "Child Sexual Abuse in Youth-Serving Organizations and Variations Across Organizational Types" 

Luciana C. Assini-Meytin, PhD 
Assistant Scientist, Department of Mental Health
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health 

May 6: "Opportunities at the Intersection of Suicide Prevention and Public Health"

Holly C. Wilcox, PhD 
Professor, Department of Mental Health
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health 

May 13: Seminar Reflection -- Discussion Session

Emily A. Kumpf, MPH
Research Associate, Department of Health Policy and Management
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health