- About 49,500 people took their own lives last year in the U.S., the highest number ever, according to new government data posted Thursday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which posted the numbers, has not yet calculated a suicide rate for the year, but available data suggests suicides are more common in the U.S. than at any time since the dawn of World War II. Read more here.
- About half of the world's population "can expect to develop" at least one type of mental disorder by the time they are 75 years old, according to a new study published in the scientific journal The Lancet Psychiatry. Why it matters: The number of Americans experiencing mental health challenges has risen in recent years, particularly during the pandemic. The study finds evidence that certain disorders — such as depression and addiction — are also on the rise at the global level. Read more here.
- The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved the first-ever pill for postpartum depression. The medication, called zuranolone, is taken daily for two weeks. In a pair of clinical trials involving women who experienced severe depression after having a baby, the drug improved symptoms — such as anxiety, difficulty sleeping, loss of pleasure, low energy, guilt or social withdrawal — as early as three days after taking the first pill. Read more here.
- A mental health break seems to have done the trick for champion gymnast Simone Biles. The four-time Olympic gold medal winner returned to competition after a two-year hiatus to claim first place at the Core Hydration Classic on August 5. “I worked on myself a lot, I still do therapy weekly, and it’s just been so exciting to come out here and have the confidence I had before,” Biles said in an interview with CNBC after the event in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. Read more here.
- The accrediting association for psychedelic practitioners has outlined what it says are the first set of professional guidelines for psychedelic-assisted therapy. Why it matters: The principles outlined by the American Psychedelic Practitioners Association aim to bring structure to the field amid rapidly growing interest in incorporating psychedelics like psilocybin and MDMA into mental health treatment. Catch up quick: Earlier this summer, the Food and Drug Administration issued the first-ever clinical trial guidelines for researchers studying psychedelic treatments for mental health conditions such as PTSD and depression, among others. Read more here.
- After her teenage daughter attempted suicide and began to cycle through emergency rooms and mental health programs during the past three years, Sarah Delarosa noticed her own health also declined. She suffered from mini strokes and stomach bleeding, the mother of four in Corpus Christi, Texas, said. To make things worse, her daughter's failing behavioral and mental health caused Delarosa to miss hours from her job as a home health aide, losing out on income needed to support her family. Read more here.
- Ahead of the school year, AdventHealth is seeing an uptick in children and teens seeking help for anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts and self-harm behavior. Most of the kids seeking help are 10 and older. Dr. Tina Gurnani, a board-certified pediatric and adolescent psychiatrist at AdventHealth for Children, said the stress of a new school year can make some of these conditions worse, so it’s crucial to do a mental health check-in with your kid for at least five minutes a day. Read more here.
- Artificial intelligence-powered social media influencers are created to look like perfect people living the perfect life, which could damage younger users' mental health, a technology strategist told Fox News. Just like their human counterparts, AI influencers are online personalities that use their platforms to endorse brands and sell products. Read more here.
- If you’re sending a kid off to college, it makes sense to experience a mixture of excitement and worry — about their leaving home, sleeping enough and making friends but also the mental health crisis on many college campuses. But I find most parents and guardians aren’t aware that this crisis includes eating disorders — which are serious, life-threatening mental illnesses characterized by a disturbance in one’s relationship with food, exercise and/or body size. Read more here.
- As drug overdose deaths reached record levels in the United States, evidence-based treatments for substance use remained significantly underutilized, a new study found. The vast majority of drug overdose deaths involve opioids, and rates have surged in recent years. In 2021, more than 80,000 people died from a drug overdose involving opioids, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Read more here.
- After a few years of what seemed like progress, overdose deaths are again rising across New Hampshire. Discussions of the state’s drug crisis often focus on cities, but rural areas have also been hit hard. Last year in Coos County, people died at twice the rate that they did in New Hampshire as a whole. Read more here.
- A now-defunct Ohio drug distributor has agreed to pay no more than about $4 million to settle lawsuits by cities and counties that it contributed to the U.S. opioid epidemic, after the state's top court ruled that one of its insurers did not have to cover costs stemming from the cases. The settlement is limited by the funds available from Masters Pharmaceutical Inc's only available insurance policy, through Chubb, according to a Wednesday order by U.S. District Judge Dan Polster in Cleveland halting litigation against the company. Read more here.
- Under pressure to enhance the city’s response to an escalating opioid crisis, the administration of Mayor Muriel E. Bowser is preparing to open the first of two sobering centers designed to divert drug users from emergency rooms and jail cells. The facilities — in place for years in cities such as Baltimore — would be the first of their kind in the District, which is suffering the second-highest rate of fatal opioid overdoses in the nation with an annual death toll more than twice that of homicides. Read more here.
- With opioid overdose deaths in Minneapolis surging, the city also has stark racial disparities in opioid deaths, with the rates for American Indian residents being 29.4 times higher and 3.9 times higher for Black residents compared to white residents. Dotson said the number of overdoses have gone down this summer compared to the previous year. He attributes some of that to the Minneapolis Police Department’s Operation Endeavor. Read more here.
- Erin Brooker Lozott has worked in the field of autism and mental health for 29 years. She answers calls from people in crisis every day. But she never expected the call to come from someone in her own family. “When that happens to somebody that you care about, it doesn’t matter how well trained you are,” she said. Before last year, Lozott said it would have been harder for her to help that family member. But with the new 988 number for the National Suicide and Crisis Hotline, she has options. Read more here.
- Airmen and Space Force Guardians can now request a mental health referral from their superiors and will be connected with a medical professional within one day under the Brandon Act. The act was signed into law in December 2021 after a 21-year-old sailor died from suicide. The Department of the Air Force has now implemented the law -- the latest military branch to do so -- and troops in the two services can voluntarily request an immediate mental health referral from a commander or supervisor with a rank of E-6 or above. Read more here.
- At a time when it seems Americans don’t agree on much, we agree on this: The US is in the throes of a mental health crisis, one that predates the pandemic but which the pandemic made impossible to ignore. Yet finding a mental health provider and, crucially, getting health insurance to cover their services continues to be a struggle. Longstanding federal laws are supposed to ensure that health insurers cover mental health care just as they do physical treatments. But 15 years after Congress passed a policy that was supposed to achieve “parity” for mental health care, we still don’t have it. Read more here.
- Starting next month, UnitedHealthcare says it will move forward with plans to drop prior authorization requirements for a range of procedures, including dozens of radiology services and genetic tests, among others. Why it matters: UnitedHealth is among the health insurance giants who have announced plans to cut back on prior authorization as federal regulators consider tougher curbs on the practice. Read more here.
- House Republicans have embedded at least 45 anti-LGBTQ+ provisions into must-pass funding bills — many of which would weaken discrimination protections for same-sex couples or restrict gender-affirming care for adults and minors. The volume and severity of these provisions is an unprecedented attempt by federal lawmakers to restrict the rights of LGBTQ+ people, activists say. The measures are not likely to make it through the Democrats who control the Senate as Congress finalizes a federal budget. It is not guaranteed that all of the efforts can or will be blocked in the Senate, LGBTQ+ activists say. Read more here.
Medicaid Redetermination and Other Medicaid News
- When states finish culling their Medicaid rolls for the first time since the pandemic began, nearly 7 million eligible people will have lost their health insurance, according to federal estimates — and more than half will be children. This slow-moving public health disaster can be avoided, if state officials act now or the federal government forces them to. States had years to prepare for this transition, which started when President Biden officially ended the covid public health emergency in April. Read more here.
- States across the country, both blue and red, are purging their Medicaid programs of millions of low-income enrollees for the first time in three years, after a pandemic policy meant to prevent vulnerable people from suddenly losing health coverage expired earlier this spring. Nearly 4 million Americans have been cut from Medicaid in the last three months, most of whom lost their insurance over paperwork issues. The impact is likely to reverse meaningful progress on health coverage and poverty that the White House once trumpeted as a direct benefit of its policies. Read more here.
- The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is ramping up pressure on states that may be failing to meet federal requirements as they renew Medicaid coverage for millions of people for the first time since the start of the pandemic. The agency has for months been mum about its behind-the-scenes communications with states, but on Wednesday made public letters it sent to state Medicaid officials warning that they may be running afoul of federal law and regulations. Read more here.
- Fewer than 300 people have been approved for Georgia’s new Medicaid program for some low-income adults who rack up enough hours of work, or other qualifying activity, each month. The program, which launched July 1, is being closely watched nationally as Georgia becomes the only state to require work or the equivalent for low-income adults newly eligible for the public health insurance program. Thursday offered the first glimpse into how the program is working so far. Read more here.
- Many people blame themselves when they are diagnosed with cancer ‒ but conditions like anxiety and depression do not cause tumors, a new study confirms. "I've told patients that for years," said Barbara Andersen, a distinguished professor and psychologist at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center. "There's no one thing that causes cancer. There's a myriad of factors," she said. "If you think, 'I did one thing wrong,' it's not it." Read more here.
- At-home, mobile app-based exercise reduced depressive symptoms and signs of burnout in healthcare workers, though adherence to the program proved challenging, the randomized COPE trial showed. By the trial's end at 12 weeks, a significant small to medium treatment effect was seen for depressive symptoms in the exercise group compared with a control group that was placed on a wait list for the apps (effect size [ES] -0.41, 95% CI -0.69 to -0.13), reported Eli Puterman, PhD, of the School of Kinesiology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and co-authors in JAMA Psychiatry. Read more here.
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