Rachel Cassandra, Alaska Public Media - Anchorage

Use of the opioid reversal drug Naloxone is increasing in Alaska. Naloxone is safe and easy to administer, but public health professionals say it’s essential to get people to the emergency room after using it. In practice, though, people often aren’t calling 9-1-1. And that’s concerning to public health experts.

U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy discussed the youth mental health crisis in Alaska at a roundtable in Anchorage.

The Alaska Women’s Cancer Care in Anchorage has been forced to ration the generic drugs cisplatin and carboplatin, due to short supplies.

Two common chemotherapy drugs are in short supply in Alaska – cisplatin and carboplatin. Oncology centers across the country are struggling to keep the drugs in stock.

Overdose deaths have been rising in Alaska for the past several years. Most of that is due to illegal fentanyl. And, it’s been showing up more and more in pills that look like prescription drugs, but are counterfeit.

Teenagers from rural Alaska were in Anchorage at the end of May, learning from other high schoolers about nicotine addiction.

The rate of Alaska deaths due to drinking alcohol nearly doubled from 2019 to 2021, based on state Department of Health data.

Banyan Alaska, a new residential center for substance abuse and addiction, opened last week.

Alaska’s death rate from traumatic brain injuries is the highest in the nation, according to a recent report from the state health department.