Education Summit

May 10, 2024 | St. Elizabeth Education and Technology Center (SETEC) | Erlanger, KY 

Social determinants of health (SDOH) are the nonmedical factors that influence health outcomes. They are the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age, and the wider set of forces and systems shaping the conditions of daily life. We know from research that the experience of addiction or substance use or mental illness is different for every individual, and often there is a combination of biological, psychological and social factors that can contribute to why a person may be struggling with behavioral health conditions. For example, some of the risk factors include: a person’s genes, the way a person’s brain functions, previous experiences of trauma, cultural influences, or social issues such as poverty and other barriers to accessing the social determinants of health.

The social determinants of health are the social and economic conditions in a person’s life that can play a significant role on a person’s overall wellness and can impact substance use and mental health related issues. Routine and habit is generally determined by our basic needs (nutrition/food, shelter, social affiliation, safety, etc.), and the various roles we occupy in society. Our habits affect what we eat, what we wear, how we relate to others, how we go to work, how we spend or save money, and more. Habits become ingrained in us—and are often tough to change. “Crafting Change on the Road to Recovery” aims to deliver a collective of avenues practitioners can “craft” with participants to enhance personalized recovery pathways.

Keynote Speaker: Maia Szalavitz, Award-Winning Neuroscience Author, Journalist & Mental Health Advocate

Maia Szalavitz is an award-winning author and journalist who covers addiction and neuroscience. Her most recent book, Undoing Drugs: The Untold Story of Harm Reduction and the Future of Addiction, is the first history of the movement aimed at focusing drug policy on minimizing harms, not highs. Her previous New York Times bestseller, Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction wove together neuroscience and social science with her personal experience of heroin addiction to explore how reframing addiction as a learning disorder can transform prevention, treatment and policy. It won the 2018 media award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. She writes regularly for The New York Times and has written for numerous other publications including TIME, Wired, Elle, The Nation, Vice, The Guardian and Scientific American.

Her 2006 book, Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids, was the first to expose the damage caused by “tough love” youth treatment and helped spur Congressional hearings. She has also authored or co-authored five other books, including the classic on child trauma, The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, with Dr. Bruce D. Perry. With Dr. Perry, she has also written Born for Love: Why Empathy Is Essential—And Endangered, which laid out why empathy is essential for social trust and how inequality can erode it. With Dr. Joseph Volpicelli, she wrote Recovery Options: The Complete Guide, the first evidence-based guide to addiction treatment. 

Maia Szalavitz's work speaks to people with addiction, their family members, policy makers, concerned community members, politicians, treatment providers, physicians, social service agencies affected by mental illness and addiction, university communities, criminal justice officials and others who want to improve the way we prevent, treat and manage drug problems.

Registration Opening 1/15/24  |  Submit a Proposal  |  Event Sponsorship Request

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