Fatal drug overdoses shot up during the peak of Covid-19 in 2020. And as the dust settled on the pandemic, it quickly became clear that one demographic group had fared far worse than any other: Native Americans.
Now, to combat the drug crisis and its disproportionate impact on indigenous people, the federal government is launching an initiative specifically meant to bolster research into addiction and overdose within native communities.
But the roughly $270 million project goes a step beyond simply studying Native American drug deaths. Instead, the National Institutes of Health is effectively handing over the reins by providing funding and infrastructure for communities to steer the research themselves.
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