Nov. 5, 2025
A University of Missouri project targeting the root causes of substance abuse and suicide in rural Missouri has secured an additional $110,000 in funding thanks to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Julie Kapp, a professor and chair of the Department of Public Health, is the primary investigator on the Adversity to Action (A2A) project.
The initial grant funded training for professionals, such as health care providers and social workers, who serve families in five rural Missouri counties: Dent, Washington, Crawford, St. Francois and Phelps. These counties ranked among the worst in Missouri for drug overdose mortality rates in 2021.
The new grant, which brings the total USDA funding to more than $442,000, will be used to move the project beyond professional education. In the next phase, the team will create an online training module aimed directly at individuals and families.
“Given our success designing and implementing an online provider training, our next crucial step is to design an online public training,” Kapp said.
Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACEs, are traumatic events like abuse, neglect and household substance misuse. They are a key risk factor for future substance use disorder and suicide, which is why the A2A project targets them as “upstream factors” of the crisis.
“Because ACEs are intergenerational and have long-lasting, detrimental effects on a person’s physical and mental health, educating individuals and families on ACEs will bring awareness to prevent or mitigate their impacts,” Kapp said.
The new public training will be deployed in partnership with MU Extension. Kapp highlighted the need to educate the public to provide them with additional tools beyond just prescriptions.
