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UnDisciplined: Opioid use and recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic

Endai Huedl
/
fStop/Getty Images

It takes just three days of opioid use to put a person at significantly greater risk of developing an addiction. And once a person is addicted, it can be hard to find adequate help. During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, it got harder still, which may help explain the explosive rise in opioid deaths.

Jayme Walters is an assistant professor in the Department of Social Work at Utah State University, where her work is focused on poverty, social service capacity, and the well being of social workers. And she's the co-author of a recent study on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on opioid support services.

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Matthew LaPlante has reported on ritual infanticide in Northern Africa, insurgent warfare in the Middle East, the legacy of genocide in Southeast Asia, and gang violence in Central America. But a few years back, something donned on him: Maybe the news doesn't have to be brutally depressing all the time. Today, he balances his continuing work on more heartbreaking subjects by writing books about the intersection of science, human health and society, including the New York Times best-selling <i>Lifespan</i> with geneticist David Sinclair and the Nautilus Award-winning <i>Longevity Plan</i> with cardiologist John Day. His first solo book, <i>Superlative</i>, looks at what scientists are learning by studying organisms that have evolved in record-setting ways, and his is currently at work on another book about embracing the inevitability of human-caused climate change with an optimistic outlook on the future.<br/>