Dr. Jennifer J. Carroll, assistant professor of anthropology at Elon, has been selected as the winner of the 2020 Barbara Heldt Prize for best book in any area of Slavic, Eastern European and Eurasian studies for her 2019 monograph “Narkomania: Drugs, HIV, and Citizenship in Ukraine.”

This distinction was awarded at the annual membership meeting for the Association for Women in Slavic Studies, which is dedicated to the promotion of research and teaching in Slavic, East European and Eurasian women’s, gender and sexuality studies, and to the support of scholars who identify as women or LGBTQIA.

The prize committee offered the following commendation of Carroll’s work:

Jennifer Carroll鈥檚, Narkomania is an important contribution to the study of Ukrainian social and political development and a testamentto the power of ethnographic research to illuminate multiple, interweaved meanings in a complicated social situation–drug addiction and its treatment in post-soviet Ukraine.聽 Carroll鈥檚 book will become standard reading in qualitative and ethnographic methods classes.

Beginning her research in 2007 and continuing on and off over the next decade, Carroll crafted a research project which examined drug use in Ukraine, its medication-assisted treatment regime (MAT), clinics, clients, and practitioners, and how nongovernmental organizations, like the Global Fund, subverted local and governmental functions to pursue neoliberal agendas and set unrealistic expectations on the clinics and Ukraine鈥檚 Ministry of Health.聽聽

Yet, this is more than a story of addicts and their treatment. As domestic and international conflict escalated in Ukraine, Carroll adapted the study鈥檚 scope and premise to incorporate the events of the Euromaidan revolution, the illegal annexation of Crimea by Russia, and the Russian-backed separatist insurgency in Donbass to examine how Ukraine, during the 2010s, discursively excluded addicts鈥� presence and claim to citizenship. By linking addiction, national identity, and state building, Carroll demonstrates how 鈥渙thering鈥� addicts by the state and its citizenry developed into a shared belief, 鈥渁ddiction imaginary,鈥� that the state needed to protect the nation from addicts. Especially illuminating is how Ukrainians deployed fear of addicts in the discourses around Euromaidan movement and the crises in Crimea and Donbass.

As Michele Rivkin-Fish, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill notes, 鈥淓xposing the moralized judgments dogging drug users, Narkomania details the brutal modes of exclusion being deployed to redefine Ukraine’s body politic. Jennifer J. Carroll both explains the origins and uses of this ‘addiction imaginary,’ and counters it with a profoundly humanizing portrait of the lives and fates of Ukrainians who use drugs.”

狈补谤办辞尘补苍颈补鈥檚 intellectual scope and breadth and engagement with the field of medical anthropology, domestic and global health policy, ethnography, international relations, and contemporary national and regional politics is why the prize committee picked it for this year鈥檚 Heldt prize for best book by a woman in any area of Slavic, East European, Eurasian Studies.聽聽

More information about the award can be found on the .

Many people who live with HIV or who use illicit substances face stigma as a result of their health status. That stigma can serve as a barrier to health care and lower the quality of life for people facing these struggles daily. That’s true in ordinary times.

But how has the COVID-19 pandemic and the many public fears and anxieties around the disease improved or worsened the impacts of stigma on these vulnerable populations? A new study aims to find out.

Jennifer Carroll, assistant professor of anthropology at 福利亚洲国产精品, has received funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health, to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on stigma, health risk, and risk behaviors experienced by people living with HIV who use drugs in St. Petersburg, Russia. This special funding comes through a competitive, urgent funding opportunity from the National Institutes of Health intended to accelerate high-impact health research about the pandemic.

This research will be carried out by Carroll in partnership with her long-time collaborator Tetiana Kiriazova, director of the Ukrainian Institute for Public Health Policy based in Kyiv, Ukraine. They are working in tandem with a clinical research team from Boston Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, and the First Pavlov State Medical University in St. Petersburg, Russia. Through this work the group aims to identify and promote equitable pandemic preparedness strategies for highly vulnerable populations.

As opioid overdose rates continue to rise, the role of first responders 鈥� including police officers 鈥� grows more critical in the fight to save lives. This study found that among officers who responded to overdose calls in the last six months, just 37 percent administered naloxone on the scene and a staggering 36 percent made an arrest. Although the large majority (91 percent) correctly reported whether their state had a Good Samaritan Law in effect, only 26 percent had an accurate understanding of whether that law protects people on the scene from arrest.

The study was led by Assistant Professor of Anthropology Jennifer Carroll in her capacity as a scientific advisor to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention鈥檚 Overdose Response Strategy and in cooperation with High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas throughout the eastern United States. Carroll notes that there is little if any research of this kind on law enforcement officers鈥� involvement in emergency response to overdose. This study surveyed 2,829 officers in 20 states in the fall of 2017; the authors believe this to be the largest such survey of law enforcement officers in the country.

Good Samaritan Laws, which protect overdose victims and callers from arrest for drug possession, and train non-medical personnel (including law enforcement officers) to administer naloxone are two scientifically-proven ways to reduce drug overdose deaths. Despite their renowned success in saving lives, the study authors found that the more frequently officers respond to overdose calls, the more negative their attitudes become about these overdose prevention strategies.

鈥淭he officers appear to believe these [Good Samaritan] laws are ineffective,鈥� says Carroll. 鈥淭his is really important public health work, and the science is incontrovertible. Maybe officers aren鈥檛 there to see the positive outcomes from these laws 鈥� they see them at the overdose scene, but not at that person鈥檚 graduation or their kid鈥檚 birthday party a few months later. It鈥檚 also very likely 鈥攅specially in regions where officer understanding of their own state laws is low and arrest rates at overdose scenes is high 鈥� that these proven strategies aren鈥檛 effective because law enforcement is impeding the law鈥檚 effect by their actions in the field.鈥�

The data raise questions about whether law enforcement officers are best suited to respond to overdose calls, which are medical emergencies, when no other crimes have been reported. Regardless, the authors note that officers who are expected to respond to opioid overdoses should receive additional training on naloxone use and on the specifics of their Good Samaritan Laws, which can vary from state to state.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on front-line healthcare workers has been profound. Recent Elon grad Hannah Alcock ’20, who majored in public health studies, knows this well. Until her recent graduation, she worked as a nurse technician and emergency medical technician in a North Carolina hospital where she witnessed the human toll of COVID-19 firsthand.

Alcock and Assistant Professor of Anthropology Jennifer Carroll recently published a co-authored essay about Alcock鈥檚 experiences working with the community to assist with COVID-19 testing and diagnosis. The essay, titled 鈥溾�� was picked up by , one of the largest online forums and public magazines covering issues in medical anthropology, cultural psychiatry, psychology, and bioethics.

In the essay, Alcock and Carroll highlight what happens when the results of diagnostic testing violate the expectations of pediatric patients and their parents. In what appears to be an extraordinary deviation from the norm, parents of very sick children often left the hospital satisfied after receiving an inconclusive COVID-19 test. Other parents whose children came to the ER with non-COVID injuries like sprained ankles or broken fingers were often surprised to find that their perfectly healthy-looking child did, in fact, have COVID-19. This often led to dissatisfaction and bargaining with hospital staff about whether these results could possibly be true.

Why do parents have such strong and unexpected reactions? What makes a certain diagnosis upsetting while an uncertain diagnosis is comforting? Carroll and Alcock rely on the theoretical insights of critical medical anthropology to explain this phenomenon. Though our understanding of infectious disease is rooted in scientific data, we experience illness in ways that are personal, symbolic, and narrative. What matters, they argue, is not the results of the test, but the stories that patients are able to tell about themselves about the results they have received.

鈥淲e try to find what comfort or certainty we can by forcing the bits of knowledge we do have about the virus into the narratives we already know, the stories that already make sense,鈥� they write, 鈥渂ecause nothing is so deeply, psychologically unsettling as lived experience that has no coherent story.鈥�

The essay was published as part of Somatosphere鈥檚 ongoing series 鈥�.鈥�

Jennifer J. Carroll, assistant professor of anthropology at Elon, is no stranger to the media.

Her research on medical and policy responses to substance use across the globe has been covered by , , magazine, and , among others.

In her latest media appearance, Carroll was interviewed by the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) about her new book, . Carroll sat down with NACCHO Government Affairs member Ian Goldstein to discuss the politics of drug policy, how anthropology can inform public health responses to substance use, and what the U.S. can learn about its own overdose crisis from studying public health efforts in Ukraine.

The interview recently aired on the Feb. 20 edition of NACCHO’s “Podcast from Washington.” The full episode can be downloaded on the or through any podcast subscription service.

Taleed El-Sabawi, assistant professor of law, and Jennifer Carroll, assistant professor of anthropology, have been selected to serve as an independent investigator and research mentor, respectively, in a research training program funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the Justice Community Opioid Intervention Network (JCOIN) Coordinating and Translational Center.

The JCOIN training program is designed to support early career investigators who are advancing the聽capacity and diversity聽of high-impact research for populations involved with the health and criminal justice systems. During a two-year period, the program will emphasize research proposal writing, grant management, mentorship and advanced research skills needed to be successful in criminal justice settings, concluding with opportunities to secure research funding that is available on a competitive basis.

El-Sabawi and Carroll were selected for the JCOIN research training program as an investigator/mentor team proposing new research into the implementation of North Carolina鈥檚 recently enacted 鈥淒eath by Distribution鈥� law. This law allows an individual who sold or delivered drugs that later resulted in a fatal overdose to be charged with second-degree murder. Carroll and El-Sabawi aim to better understand how this law changes the behaviors of people who use and/or sell drugs in North Carolina 鈥� and whether or not those changes actually reduce North Carolinians鈥� risk of fatal overdose.

Death by distribution laws have been widely disparaged by public health experts (including Carroll, who testified in opposition to the bill before the North Carolina Senate Judicial Committee) as a well-meaning but ill-fated measure that will likely worsen rates of opioid overdose in North Carolina. Carroll鈥檚 own work, based on in-depth research among individuals at risk for opioid overdose in North Carolina, support this conclusion. El-Sabawi brings significant expertise in legal, regulatory, and litigation strategies that have emerged in response to the current overdose crisis. Her聽research has explored the conflation of public health and criminal justice responses to substance use in the U.S., lending significant insight into how a law designed to punish individuals who have sold a drug may (or may not) be able to produce the desired reduction in fatal overdoses.

The JCOIN research training program begins in early April, at the Academic and Health Policy Conference on Correctional Health, which will be held in Raleigh.

The Society for Medical Anthropology awards the every other year to the scholar whose research best combines a critical anthropology focus with rich ethnographic data, and advances critical perspectives in medical anthropological questions in the general area of global public health.

Carroll’s article was also recognized earlier this year by the American Association for Ukrainian Studies as the best peer-reviewed article published in 2017 or 2018 in the field of Ukrainian studies.

The video abstract for Carroll’s work can be viewed below:

An interdisciplinary team of student researchers composed of psychology major Cameron Mullins ’21, statistics major Hannaleigh Pierce ’21 and Mackenzie Martinez ’21, who is majoring in anthropology and Spanish, presented original research at an international anthropology conference in November.

The project the students presented, entitled “If You’re Black and Using Drugs, People Don’t Want to Help You: Substance Use, Harm Reduction, and Default Whiteness on a College Campus,” explores the role of race as a mediator of student perceptions of emergency services and medical safety policies at Elon. Put another way, the project asks whether students feel safe calling 9-1-1 during an alcohol or drug-related emergency and whether the perceived barriers to calling 9-1-1 (fear of getting in trouble, distrust of police, etc.) are different for students of different races. After analyzing numerous interviews with fellow Elon students, the research team came to the conclusion that, in fact, race greatly affects students’ reported comfort with calling 9-1-1 as well as their perception of the consequences they will face if they decide to make the call.

This collaborative research effort began as a class project in Assistant Professor of Anthropology Jennifer Carroll’s Qualitative Research Methods course in fall 2018. Originally exploring how student resident advisors at Elon perceive their role in ensuring student safety with the rest of their class, Martinez, Mullins and Pierce elected to continue their analysis and explore deeper, more complex questions about how students perceive and act in light of university policies.

In addition to presenting their original research to a large and enthusiastic audience, students were able to network with senior anthropologists whose work has been a centerpiece of their coursework at Elon and their team-based independent research.

Student travel to this international conference was made possible by the generosity of the 福利亚洲国产精品 Office for Undergraduate Research and the 福利亚洲国产精品 Department of Sociology & Anthropology, both of which offered substantial funds to support the students’ attendance. Thanks also goes to 福利亚洲国产精品 Assistant Dean of Student Life Whitney Gregory, who has been a supportive advocate of this research project and shown dedicated interest in the findings it produces, all done with the shared goal of making Elon a safer and more equal community.

Overdose fatality reviews are a recent innovation in efforts to reduce the rate of opioid overdose. This strategy relies on confidential, detailed investigations into the recent history of individuals who suffered a fatal overdose in order to identify policy changes and prevention strategies that might have forestalled this death–and, by extention, other similar deaths that may occur in the future.

Carroll especially emphasized the need for people of color to be represented and placed in positions of leadership at all levels of planning and implementation.

The study presented in the article was led by Carroll's long-time collaborator Assistant Professor of Social Medicine Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein from UNC-Chapel Hill and facilitated by current research partners at the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition. The purpose of the study was to better understand and document how older individuals of color residing in urban areas — those who have likely been part of and/or lived through the "old" opioid epidemic of the 1970s and 1980s — are being affected by today's overdose crisis.

Based on an extensive qualitative investigation carried out in Durham County in 2018, the article highlights the important role that well-known, well-trusted drug sellers can play in protecting people of color who use drugs against opioid overdose. Specifically, trusted sellers have typically earned that trust through consistent, transparent, and generally successful attempts to avoid selling fentanyl-contaminated drugs. The study also found that fentanyl-contaminated heroin was more often encountered by people of color who use drugs when primary, trusted drug sellers were unavailable. In the absence of these trusted, fentanyl-free sources, drug consumers had to seek heroin or other drugs through less trusted, secondary suppliers.

This study is part of a growing scientific literature indicating that removing trusted drug suppliers (such as through arrest or other methods of law enforcement pressure and disruption) may put vulnerable people who use drugs at immediate risk of overdose.

The article, which has been released online ahead of print, can be found .