Elevate Pennsylvania Initiative

Pennsylvania communities are working diligently to address substance related issues across the Commonwealth, and the recent lawsuit settlement from opioid manufacturers and distributors presents an incredible opportunity to use these funds to meet the needs of those that need assistance. The Elevate Pennsylvania Initiative is designed to maximize the impact of these efforts by sharing knowledge and resources, conducting research and evaluations, and coordinating projects to improve community health and safety outcomes.

TBD

The Elevate Pennsylvania Initiative has several goals that we believe will help to maximize the positive impacts of settlement funding in Pennsylvania and across the country.

1. Develop relationships with local and state leaders. These relationships will help us to understand how funds are being utilized across Pennsylvania so that we can evaluate the impact and effectiveness of these efforts. We will also be able to better grasp what assistance community and state leaders may need to better assist them in deciding how to utilize settlement funding to maximize their positive impact. Over time, we will develop opportunities to share knowledge across communities so we can learn from our collective work to reduce substance related issues in Pennsylvania.
2. Create a Data Warehouse. This Data Warehouse will include datasets for measuring key substance related outcomes in Pennsylvania communities and nationwide. This Data Warehouse will ensure more rapid substance-related empirical research and for reporting key measures in Pennsylvania communities. Through this Data Warehouse, we’ll be able to track how the settlement funds are impacting key indicators of a community’s health, exploring where greater attention may be required to meet the needs of all Pennsylvanian populations.
3. Identify other states’ use of settlement funds. We hope to be able to share the knowledge from our work in Pennsylvania with other states. In addition, we also hope to compare outcomes across states over time, so that we can learn more about effective approaches to reducing the burdens of substance related issues in communities across states.

• Glenn Sterner; assistant professor of criminal justice at Penn State Abington and an SSRI co-funded faculty member through CSUA through CSUA
• Deborah Ehrenthal, SSRI director and project advisor
• Paul Griffin, CSUA director, professor of industrial and manufacturing engineering (IME) and project member
• Louisa Holmes, assistant professor of geography and SSRI co-funded faculty member through CSUA
• Kristina Brant, assistant professor of rural sociology and SSRI co-funded faculty member through CSUA
• Qiushi Chen, assistant professor of IME
• Brian King, professor of geography
• Dennis Scanlon, distinguished professor of health policy and administration and Director of the Center for Health Care and Policy Research
• Joel Segel, associate professor of health policy and administration and CSUA advisory board member
• Janet Welsh, research professor at the Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center (PRC) and principal investigator for the Evidence-based Prevention and Intervention Support (EPIS)
• Kayla Hernandez, undergraduate research assistant from the Criminal Justice Research Center
• Justin Rist, Rob Newton, Zixuan Feng, IME graduate students
• SSRI’s Computational and Spatial Analysis Core (CSA)

Check back later for updates!