Dr. Angela Hagaman & Dr. Wayne Coombs: Communities, stories and pharmaceutical colonization

Hello, and welcome back to the second season of the Insight Cafe, An SBI Podcast. The SBI or Strong BRAIN Institute, uses science related to both childhood adversity and building resilience to prevent or lessen the negative impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences (or ACEs) on people’s lives. We want to promote awareness and the use of resilience informed procedures, policies, actions, and words. We are happy you are here. In this episode, join me in a conversation with Dr. Angela and Dr. Wayne as we take a plunge into the history of the Appalachian region and its ties to the opioid epidemic. Dr. Angela currently serves as a research assistant professor at ETSU, as the co-director of the Addiction Science center and the interim director for the Strong Brain institute. Dr. Angela has also been a part of the ETSU College of Public Health for over a dozen years and has worked with community partners all across northeast Tennessee to create a foundation for all this work.Dr. Wayne is a retired psychologist and professor of counseling from West Virginia. He founded the West Virginia Prevention Resource center which administered the substance use prevention system in west Virginia. Dr. Wayne has worked in mental health with individuals and groups, participating in research and community development for over 40 years. Currently, he is working on developing a community recovery and healing process for Appalachian communities experiencing historical trauma.