Hepatitis Education Project

Are you a provider serving people who use drugs and/or people experiencing homeless in the Seattle area AND interested in bringing hepatitis C testing to your community? Get in touch! Send us a DM or use the “Contact Us” form on our website (link in bio).

Our community closet is just one thing that keeps people coming back to visit us. It’s always stocked with whatever donations we’ve received, and our community can take whatever will make their day a little better. Thank you to everyone who has donated, and we always welcome donations - esp blankets, clothes, and packaged foods.
It’s a small but important part of our space. While our organization is centered on eliminating disease, our daily work focuses on making people feel seen, welcome and cared for. We often see people coming back in - sometimes weekly, sometimes daily. We work to foster a safe space, somewhere our clients feel like they belong and can visit regularly.
Sometimes, people aren’t open to testing for hepatitis right away. But we’ve found that when people keep coming back - maybe at first for the closet or for our harm reduction services, eventually they become curious in our work and take a small step towards ownership over their health - finding out their hepatitis status.
hepatitis education, hepatitis elimination, harm reduction

our office sticker collection - which one is your favorite?

Mandy, our Correctional Health Program Manager, has been busy teaching classes at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent and the King County Correctional Facility in Seattle. Across both jails, she taught 8 classes in just one week!
People who are incarcerated have the opportunity to attend her classes, where they learn about hepatitis. Many people are aware of hepatitis and are concerned about it, but there are a lot of myths for Mandy to debunk. Here are the facts when it comes to hepatitis C:

- You *cannot* catch hepatitis C from yourself. Hepatitis C is a transmissible virus.
- You *cannot* catch hepatitis C from casual contact like just living near someone else. Hepatitis C is only transmitted through direct contact with infected blood.
- Most of the time, it is more likely a person has contracted hepatitis C through IVDU prior to being in jail or prison, not inside.
In September, Mandy was awarded a certificate of appreciation from the King County Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention. In the coming months, she’ll be traveling around the State of Washington to teach at prisons. If you’d like to support her work and HEP’s work at the local, state, and national level - click the link in our bio to donate - we are a small non-profit and every donation matters.

[Mandy Altman](https://www.hep.org/team), our Correctional Health Program Manager, has been busy teaching classes at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent and the King County Correctional Facility in Seattle. Across both jails, she taught 8 classes in just one week!

People who are incarcerated have the opportunity to attend her classes, where they learn about hepatitis. Many people are aware of hepatitis and are concerned about it, but there are a lot of myths for Mandy to debunk. Here are the facts when it comes to hepatitis C:

- You *cannot* catch hepatitis C from yourself. Hepatitis C is a transmissible virus.
- You *cannot* catch hepatitis C from casual contact like just living near someone else. Hepatitis C is only transmitted through direct contact with infected blood.
- Most of the time, it is more likely a person has contracted hepatitis C through IVDU prior to being in jail or prison, not inside.

In September, Mandy was awarded a certificate of appreciation from the King County Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention. In the coming months, she’ll be traveling around the State of Washington to teach at prisons. If you’d like to support her work and HEP’s work at the local, state, and national level - click the link in our bio to donate - we are a small non-profit and every donation matters.

A team of scientists from the CDC's Division of Viral Hepatitis analyzed Hepatitis C-related hospitalization rate data from 2012-2019 across the United States. The West South Central region, including Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas had the highest age-adjusted HCV-related hospitalization rates in this time period.
The Pacific region (including Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington) had the third-highest HCV-related hospitalization rate from 2012-2019.
Nationally, among HCV-related hospitalizations, 28.7% had diabetes, 17.4% substance use disorder and 11.7% cancer.

August 31 is International Overdose Awareness Day, the world’s largest annual campaign to end overdose, remember without stigma those who have died, and acknowledge the grief of family and friends left behind.

Visit overdoseday.com to read tributes to loved ones & find actions you can take to help 💜

Do you believe in the power of HEP's work and want to ensure that we're able to continue providing essential health services at zero cost to our community? Consider making a donation.

We're connecting people to lifesaving care — please join us: https://loom.ly/DBCoOe0 💞

Undetected and untreated, uses infected cells to make more of itself and attack the , often doing serious damage for decades before any symptoms appear.

That's why getting tested for is so important. If you don't know your status, talk to a healthcare provider about getting checked, or come visit us at HEP (Mon-Thu, 12:30-5:30PM) for free testing and linkage to care!

Did you know (Narcan) is available in injectable form?

Both nasal and injectable naloxone are effective at reversing opioid overdoses, but the injectable version doesn't require as high of a dose to work, which can reduce the severity of withdrawal symptoms. We have both forms available at HEP, along with friendly staff who'd be more than happy to answer any questions you have about administering them!