Research by 2018 PEP Fellow Elizabeth Evans, and colleagues at UCLA and at the Veterans Administration (VA) in Los Angeles, looked at why many women military veterans turn to the VA only as a health care safety net or last resort.  The research, featured in Health Medicine Network, cites bureaucratic hurdles, limited knowledge about VA eligibility and a dislike of the VA's military-like setting among factors deterring women from using VA services.

Toussaint Losier, 2019 PEP Fellow, was interviewed on Kite Line radio program in a three-part series about his book on the prisoners' movement, and history of resistance to slavery and incarceration. In the program, Losier discussed the history of resistance beginning with the "workhouse" period of incarceration occurring from emancipation to the 1940s. He then moves into the rise of the "big house" ideal from WWII into the 1970s, which was a period of immense gains in prisoner self-determination and labor organizing, including the "prison rebellion years" of 1968-1972. The series concludes with a discussion of more recent waves of prisoner organizing. Listen to Part One, Part Two and Part Three now.

When it comes to addressing the national opioid crisis, most of the research has focused on the physical health risks faced by people with opioid use disorder, such as overdose and infectious disease. For the first time, Elizabeth Evans, 2018 PEP Fellow, studied the impact of treating opioid use disorder on the risk for arrest and incarceration, comparing the effects of two different medications approved for the condition. Published in the journal Addiction, the new research, featured in Medical Xpress, found that, over a period of five years, people with opioid use disorder taking either prescribed medication were less likely to be arrested and incarcerated than those with the disorder who were not taking the medication. "There has been very little examination of the impact on social outcomes of treating opioid use disorder," says Evans, assistant professor in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences and lead author of the paper. "We shifted the research focus to look at criminal justice outcomes and whether providing medication was related to the likelihood of arrest or incarceration over time." Research also featured in Managed Care, News Medical Life Sciences, and R & D Magazine.

2018 PEP Fellow, Elizabeth Evans featured on WGBY's Connecting Point discussing her work teaming with two Western Massachusetts sheriff's offices to design and implement an opioid treatment program for jail detainees in Franklin and Hampshire counties.