Salk Health Activist Fellowship Returns Focused on Substance Use Policies in Pennsylvania

Everyone knows someone affected by substance use. Particularly in health care where most staff, no matter their specialty or context, must daily find ways to care for individuals dealing with substance use diagnosis or related issues. The Jewish Healthcare Foundation’s (JHF) Salk Health Activist Fellowship returns this fall for its twenty-fourth iteration to explore the myriad substance use policies that affect the health of Pennsylvanians and equip participants with the skills to make meaningful progress.

This year’s Salk Fellowship has a cohort of 25 fellows from eight different academic institutions from the region with a total of 21 different academic areas of study, creating an incredibly diverse and experienced group. The fellows will form interdisciplinary teams and devise a strategy to advance a key policy issue to improve available substance use supports in Pennsylvania. Projects will look at substance use among pregnant and postpartum people, updating Pennsylvania’s Good Samaritan Law, improving access to substance use treatment, syringe service programs, medications for Opioid Use Disorder in carceral settings, access to supportive resources for youth, and more.

The Fellowship will have in-person weekly sessions until the finale on November 19. Fellows will get to hear from regional and national experts on substance use issues and policy change strategies including Donna Cooper, MPA, MIM, executive director at Children First; Latika D. Davis-Jones, PhD, MSW, MPH, secretary of the Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; Sydney Etheredge, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania; State Representative and Chair of the House Health Committee Dan Frankel; Stuart Fisk, CRNP, MSN, director of the Office of Behavioral Health at the Allegheny County Department of Human Services; Jourdan Hicks, MS.Ed, storyteller, podcaster, and media consultant; Raagini Jawa, MD, MPH, FASAM, ID-addiction medicine physician researcher at the University of Pittsburgh; State Representative Emily Kinkead; Kiley Koscinski, reporter at WESA; Halle Stockton, executive director at PublicSource; State Representative Jim Rigby; Bradley Stein, MD, PhD, MPH, director of RAND Opioid Policy Center of Research Excellence; and State Representative Jim Struzzi.