Episode #443 Grief As A Public Health Issue, With Laura Vargas, MSW
- Laura Hollabaugh
- 10 hours ago
- 6 min read
On This Episode Of The Public Health Epidemiology Conversations (PHEC) Podcast
What happens to your blood pressure when grief goes unaddressed? How does unprocessed loss drive isolation, worsen chronic disease management, and increase substance use? These aren't hypothetical questions. They're the daily reality for millions of Americans navigating grief without adequate support.
The Case for Grief as a Public Health Priority
Laura Vargas makes a compelling argument that grief is being overlooked as a critical public health issue. Drawing from her work with over 2,000 individuals grieving substance-related deaths, she explains how grief affects sleep patterns, appetite, blood pressure, diabetes management, and leads people toward risky behaviors. The ripple effects touch nearly every public health challenge we currently track, yet grief itself remains largely invisible in our prevention strategies. Laura draws parallels to how we missed early warning signs in the opioid crisis, suggesting we may be making the same mistake with unsupported grief. The pandemic alone created unprecedented levels of loss, the overdose crisis takes nearly 100,000 lives annually, and yet we continue treating grief as a private matter rather than a public health imperative.
Beyond Clinical Interventions: The Power of Peer Support
The solution Laura proposes isn't complex clinical programming. It centers on something simpler and more powerful: peer support. Her organization, Peer Support Community Partners, works with communities to co-design grief support systems that meet people where they are. This means working with Indianapolis yoga instructors to integrate grief support into existing classes, helping a group of bereaved fathers build decks together while processing their losses, and training volunteers from Philadelphia's Black community to create culturally relevant support spaces. The approach recognizes that most grieving people don't need pathologizing or extensive clinical intervention. They need to feel seen, heard, validated, and supported by others who truly understand their experience.
Why Traditional Support Groups Miss So Many People
During the conversation, Dr. Huntley shares her own experience attending a grief support group where she was one of only two Black women among 15 to 20 participants. Laura validates this common experience and explains why her organization prioritizes co-design with communities rather than implementing one-size-fits-all programs. When she partnered with Marion County's first Latina coroner (herself a bereaved mother), they didn't prescribe a standard support group model. Instead, they trained community members and empowered them to apply peer support principles in ways that made sense for their contexts. The results included grief-informed yoga classes, school-based groups addressing gun violence losses, and public speaking panels that normalized grief conversations. This approach acknowledges that effective grief support must reflect the cultural contexts, communication styles, and existing strengths of the communities being served.
The Physical Toll of Unprocessed Grief
Laura details the concrete ways grief manifests physically. Research shows blood pressure increases, sleep disruption becomes chronic, appetite disappears (a particular concern Dr. Huntley raises regarding her own diabetes management), and immune function declines. Some people describe feeling completely numb, while others experience hypervigilance or can't stop thinking about their loss. These aren't signs of pathology. They're normal responses to extraordinary loss. The problem emerges when people lack support systems that normalize these experiences and help them navigate the long-term journey of grief. Without that support, temporary coping mechanisms (sleeping pills, alcohol, isolation) can become entrenched patterns that create new public health challenges.
Grief Support for Direct Service Providers
The episode also explores an often-overlooked population: healthcare workers and other direct service providers who witness death and loss regularly. Laura explains how her organization provides peer support specifically for these professionals experiencing burnout, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma. These individuals entered their fields because of deep compassion, but the cumulative weight of others' grief takes a significant toll. By creating spaces where providers can support each other and process their experiences, organizations can prevent the loss of dedicated professionals while also improving the quality of care they provide.
Moving From Silence to Community
Throughout the conversation, both Laura and Dr. Huntley emphasize that grief thrives in silence and isolation. The cultural narrative that we should "move on" after a funeral service, that repeatedly sharing the same story is burdensome, or that strong people handle grief privately creates dangerous conditions for those who are suffering. Peer support disrupts these narratives by creating spaces where repeating your story is welcomed, where there's no pressure to "be over it," and where showing up authentically (however grief looks that day) is not just accepted but encouraged. This shift from private suffering to community support has implications far beyond individual well-being. It has the potential to interrupt cycles of substance use, reduce isolation-related health outcomes, and create more resilient communities.
About Our Guest
Laura Vargas, MSW, LCSW
Laura Vargas is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker based in Colorado who has dedicated her career to developing grief support programs for individuals, families, and communities bereaved by the overdose crisis. As a Latina working in behavioral health, she has focused on ensuring grief resources and services are developed and offered through a lens of cultural humility.
She serves as the Director of Outreach Programs for Peer Support Community Partners, where she has been expanding peer grief support across the country since 2022 with the mission of changing the culture of grief in America. Prior to this role, Laura created Philly HEALs, a nationally recognized holistic grief support program for loss due to substance use in Philadelphia. She has worked directly with over 2,000 individuals grieving the death of a loved one to substance use.
Laura earned her Master of Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice. She is a member of the Association for Death Education and Counseling and has presented at national conferences, been featured on podcasts and local news stations, and consulted with various jurisdictions looking to create grief support programs for substance-related deaths.
Listen To This Episode Of The Public Health Epidemiology Conversations (PHEC) Podcast
Conversation Highlights
Grief creates measurable public health impacts.
Unprocessed grief affects sleep, blood pressure, chronic disease management, substance use patterns, and leads to increased isolation. These aren't abstract concerns but documented physical and behavioral changes that compound existing health challenges and create new ones.
Peer support works because it normalizes the grief experience.
When grieving people connect with others who share lived experience, they no longer feel alone in their pain. This simple act of being seen, heard, and validated by someone who understands can be more powerful than clinical interventions for most people navigating loss.
Effective grief support must be co-designed with communities.
One-size-fits-all programs miss the mark because grief expression and support preferences are deeply cultural. When communities have agency in designing their own peer support systems (like grief-informed yoga or bereaved fathers building decks together), engagement and sustainability dramatically improve.
We're repeating the mistakes of the opioid crisis with grief.
Just as warning signs were missed in the 1990s with prescription opioid overprescribing, we're currently overlooking the cascading effects of unsupported grief from the pandemic, overdose crisis, gun violence, and suicide. The longitudinal impacts may not be immediately visible, but they're accumulating.
Healthcare workers and direct service providers need grief support too.
Professionals who regularly encounter death and loss experience burnout, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma. Creating peer support systems for these providers prevents attrition while improving the quality of care they can offer to others.
The traditional timeline for grief is a myth.
Society expects people to "move on" shortly after funeral services, but grief doesn't follow a schedule. People may need to tell the same story repeatedly, experience waves of intense emotion months or years later, or discover new dimensions of their loss over time. All of this is normal.
Grief support is often about permission more than intervention.
Many grieving people don't need extensive clinical treatment. They need permission to feel what they're feeling, to take the time they need, to show up authentically, and to access community without pressure to perform wellness they don't feel.
"We're kind of going down that territory with grief that we're going to get to a place where there's so much grief and there's so many adverse effects of unsupported grief that we're going to ask ourselves, how did we get here?" - Laura Vargas
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Public Health Consulting To Support You
DrCHHuntley LLC is a public health consulting firm that specializes in epidemiology consulting, supporting large nonprofit organizations in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and Florida that serve Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). We also provide nationwide public health consulting and epidemiology consulting support to BIPOC organizations across the United States.