FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 6. 2025

Contact: Lisa Batitto, news@drugfreenj.org

Next Knock Out Opioid Abuse Day Webinar to Explore Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Opioid Prevention and Treatment

MILLBURN –The next webinar in the 2025 Knock Out Opioid Abuse Day Learning Series will focus on addressing the unequal burden of the opioid crisis across racial and ethnic groups. This session, titled “Improving Prevention & Treatment for Opioid Use Among Racial & Ethnic Groups,” is scheduled for 11 a.m. on Thursday, June 12 and is presented by the Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey (PDFNJ), the Office of Alternative and Community Responses (OACR), and the Opioid Education Foundation of America (OEFA).

Systemic barriers in healthcare access, treatment availability, and culturally responsive care have contributed to striking disparities in how different communities experience and recover from opioid use disorder. According to the CDC, overdose death rates among Black and Hispanic populations have risen sharply in recent years, often outpacing those in white populations due to under-prescribing of medications for addiction treatment and delayed access to life-saving interventions.

The webinar will feature Dr. Edouard Coupet Jr, an assistant professor in Emergency Medicine and Core Faculty in the Yale Program of Addiction Medicine at Yale University; and Carola Gaines, who recently retired from Quartz and University of Wisconsin Health where she served for 31 years, working with Medicaid and SSI families advocating and creating programs that would support their health and assist in removing barriers to health care. It will explore strategies for developing equitable, community-informed prevention and treatment approaches that cater to the unique needs of diverse populations.

“As the opioid epidemic continues to evolve, we must ensure that all communities have equal access to effective prevention and treatment,” said Angelo M. Valente, Executive Director of PDFNJ. “This webinar reflects our commitment to confronting this crisis through a lens of health equity.”

The Knock Out Opioid Abuse Day Learning Series has reached over 10,000 participants annually, providing continuing education to professionals in healthcare, behavioral health, emergency services, and community leadership. Since its launch in 2020, the series has featured national and state-level experts who bring a multidisciplinary perspective to combating opioid misuse.

The initiative is part of the broader Knock Out Opioid Abuse Day campaign, held statewide on October 6, which brings together communities and prescribers to raise awareness about the risks of opioid misuse. In 2024 alone, New Jersey saw 1,803 suspected overdose deaths, underscoring the need for sustained, inclusive outreach and education.

To register for the webinar and learn more, visit: knockoutday.drugfreenj.org

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Best known for its statewide anti-drug advertising campaign, the Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey is a private not-for-profit coalition of professionals from the communications, corporate and government communities whose collective mission is to reduce demand for illicit drugs in New Jersey through media communication. To date, more than $200 million in broadcast time and print space has been donated to the Partnership’s New Jersey campaign, making it the largest public service advertising campaign in New Jersey’s history. Since its inception the Partnership has garnered 230 advertising and public relations awards from national, regional and statewide media organizations.