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We examine strategies, programs, and policies that educators have developed to reduce work stressors and thus health risks. First, we review twenty-seven empirical studies and review papers on organizational programs and policies in K-12 education published from 1990 to 2015 and find some evidence that mentoring, induction, and Peer Assistance and Review programs can increase support, skill development, decision-making authority, and perhaps job security, for teachers-and thus have the potential to reduce job stressors. Second, we describe efforts to reduce workplace violence in Oregon, especially in special education, including legislation, collective bargaining, research, and public awareness. We conclude that to reduce workplace violence, adequate resources are needed for staffing, training, equipment, injury/assault reporting, and investigation. Third, we discuss collective bargaining initiatives that led to mentoring and Peer Assistance and Review and state legislation on prevention of bullying and harassment of school staff. Finally, we present a research agenda on these issues.

Background and Aims Individuals with opioid use disorder (OUD) suffer disproportionately from COVID‐19. To inform clinical management of OUD patients, research is needed to identify characteristics associated with COVID‐19 progression and death among this population. We aimed to investigate the role of OUD and specific comorbidities on COVID‐19 progression among hospitalized OUD patients. Design Retrospective cohort study of merged electronic health records (EHR) from five large private health systems. Setting New York City, New York, USA, 2011–21. Participants Adults with a COVID‐19 encounter and OUD or opioid overdose diagnosis between March 2020 and February 2021. Measurements Primary exposure included diagnosis of OUD/opioid overdose. Risk factors included age, sex, race/ethnicity and common medical, substance use and psychiatric comorbidities known to be associated with COVID‐19 severity. Outcomes included COVID‐19 hospitalization and subsequent intubation, acute kidney failure, severe sepsis and death. Findings Of 110 917 COVID‐19+ adults, 1.17% were ever diagnosed with OUD/opioid overdose. OUD patients had higher risk of COVID‐19 hospitalization [adjusted risk ratio (aRR) = 1.40, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.33, 1.47], intubation [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 2.05, 95% CI = 1.74, 2.42], kidney failure (aRR = 1.51, 95% CI = 1.34, 1.70), sepsis (aRR = 2.30, 95% CI = 1.88, 2.81) and death (aRR = 2.10, 95% CI = 1.84, 2.40). Among hospitalized OUD patients, risks for worse COVID‐19 outcomes included being male; older; of a race/ethnicity other than white, black or Hispanic; and having comorbid chronic kidney disease, diabetes, obesity or cancer. Protective factors included having asthma, hepatitis‐C and chronic pain. Conclusions Opioid use disorder patients appear to have a substantial risk for COVID‐19‐associated morbidity and mortality, with particular comorbidities and treatments moderating this risk.

This paper explores the engagement of African-American, Caribbean-American, and immigrant West African girls in the critical analysis and writing of poetry to make sense of their multi-dimensional lives. The authors worked with high-school aged girls from Brooklyn, New York who took part in a weekly school-based violence prevention program, and who became both ‘participants’ in an ethnographic research study with the authors and ‘poets’ as they creatively analyzed themes from research data. The girls cultivated a practice of reading and writing poetry that further explored dating and relationship violence, themes that emerged from the violence prevention program sessions and the ethnographic interviews. The girls then began to develop ‘poetic knowledge’ grounded in their lived experiences as urban Black girls. The authors offer that ‘participatory narrative analysis’ is an active strategy that urban Black girls enlist to foster individual and collective understanding and healing.