As the global COVID-19 pandemic spread into rural communities earlier this year, states like West Virginia watched the number of emergency service calls drop as public spaces shut down and more people were either required or chose to stay at home. In the early months, suspected COVID-19 calls trickled in […]
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While the current conversation surrounding drug use is dominated by opioids, residents in North Carolina’s Appalachians say meth has always been there. Jesse-Lee Dunlap goes where not even the mail carrier does. The Haywood County resident, who works with the N.C. Harm Reduction Coalition, routinely navigates into dirt pathways so […]
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This article was originally published by Ohio Valley ReSource. Health officials in Huntington, West Virginia, say a cluster of HIV infections has grown to 71 confirmed cases. That’s in a city that usually sees about eight HIV infections in a year. As with an earlier such cluster in northern Kentucky, officials say the […]
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Opioid-related overdose deaths have doubled in recent years in West Virginia, according to the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources. The latest data from DHHR shows that in 2017, there were 875 opioid-related overdose deaths in West Virginia. While in 2012, there were 473. Anytime someone dies of a […]
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Charles Glover doesn’t mince words when assessing Clarksburg, West Virginia, the town where he was raised and still lives today. “It’s not Clarksburg anymore,” Glover says. “It’s Methburg.” Methburg. As in methamphetamines, a drug that ravaged his community more than a decade ago and today is coming back just as […]
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With rates of prescription opioid use disorder and opioid-involved overdose deaths on the rise, the U.S. opioid crisis appears to be continuing unabated. Data on overdose and death are pretty reliable. But there’s still much that’s unknown about opioid misuse that doesn’t lead to an adverse outcome such as overdose. […]
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