Bridget Morrison

I am a public health lawyer committed to using law and policy to advance health justice and equity. I am especially passionate about disrupting the criminalization of poverty, mental illness, and addiction and expanding access to evidence-based care.
After college, I worked to reform state foster care and juvenile justice systems and expand access to mental healthcare for five years. This experience galvanized me to study both law and public health to learn how to better advocate for and alongside people being criminalized for their unmet health needs.

I want to advance health justice and equity and save lives, especially in the context of our nation’s drug-overdose epidemic. We have lost nearly one million Americans to drug overdose since 1999, contributing to a nationwide decline in life expectancy that predated the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, the heightened stress, depression, loneliness, economic hardship, supply-chain disruption, and homelessness wrought by the pandemic has only exacerbated the crisis, killing our loved ones tragically and prematurely. It does not have to be this way. I want to contribute to the fight to stop this devastating squandering of human potential.

I want to contribute to the fight against drug overdose and gain a better understanding of the levers available to the federal government, state governments, and local health departments for affecting change on this public-health scourge. I hope this program will equip me with a bird’s eye view of impactful interventions in this space that I can then help scale thereafter. Thank you for the opportunity to join this urgent fight alongside brilliant and passionate colleagues at NCIPC.