Personal Health, community health

Science of Addiction

When scientists first started to study drug abuse, people addicted to drugs were thought to be morally flawed and lacking in willpower. This view has shaped society’s response to drug abuse, treating it as a moral failing rather than a health problem and resulting in punitive rather than preventive and therapeutic actions. Due to groundbreaking scientific discoveries, we now recognize drug addiction as a brain disease that can be successfully prevented and treated.

What Is Drug Addiction?

Every Child, Every Time, Every Place

Hopefully, the title caught your attention and you’re wondering what the public health topic is this month. You would not be faulted for thinking that the title refers to immunizations (every kid needs them, physicians should update them at each appointment, and different models should be explored to reach adolescent patients where they are for their vaccinations) or even healthy eating (every child deserves nutritious food every day at home, in schools, and throughout their communities).

Removing Shackles, Moving Boundaries

On May 24, 1797, legend has it that Dr. Philppe Pinel brought the values of the Enlightenment to the treatment of mental illness when he removed the iron shackles from the limbs of his patients at the men’s asylum of Bicêtre Prison, near Paris. In so doing, he initiated the era of “moral treatment” — the first humane approach to the mentally ill in Western society. This event was ultimately (more than 50 years ago) memorialized in the initiation of the yearly “May is Mental Health Month” celebration.