Event Date
The rates of fatal and non-fatal overdoses have been rising among African American/Black consumers as the rates for Caucasians flatten, yet the availability of treatment and recovery services remain the same. This webinar will briefly review health disparities in Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT), the importance of an integrated care model, and focus on strategies to enhance access to all treatment services, including buprenorphine and naloxone along with methadone. During this webinar, participants will learn:
- To illustrate disparities in opioid overdose and access to treatment in African American/ Black communities
- The barriers that contribute to health disparities among the African American/Black and Caucasian populations
- And strategies to address multi-level barriers to receive care.
Date: Monday, May 16, 2022
Time: 1:00-1:30 p.m. EDT
Presenters: Dr. Robert Lyle Cooper, PhD, MSSW
Dr. R. Lyle Cooper, PhD, MSSW, is an associate professor in Meharry Medical College’s Department of Family and Community Medicine. Meharry Medical College is one of the oldest HBCU medical schools started in 1876 to meet the needs of the African American population in Nashville Tennessee. Dr. Cooper has been working at the intersection of substance use disorder and infectious disease for nearly 25 years. In his early career he was a community health outreach worker in the original NIDA indigenous street outreach worker studies. He has since served in several counselor and director roles including directing an integrated substance use disorder and HIV clinic, a syringe services program in Washington DC, and serves as the associate director of the Meharry Addiction Clinic. This clinic provides MAT services as well as primary care services to a largely homeless population in Nashville. Dr. Cooper is currently the PI on 7 federally funded grants from SAMHSA, HRSA, the NIAID and the CDC. All his study focuses on harm reduction interventions and integrated care for people who use drugs.