Week of December 5–9, 2022

Key topics covered during this period include general mental health issues, impact of the pandemic, workplace issues, gun violence, the opioid crisis, mental health and aging, and policy issues.

General Articles

• When Porter Burks began experiencing a mental health crisis on Oct. 2, his family called 911 hoping to receive help for the 20-year-old who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Instead, five Detroit police officers arrived at the home, where they fired 38 rounds at Burks, killing him and leaving his family forever shattered. People living with mental illness and their loved ones deserve more. And a recently released national toolkit offers a road map for how we find our way there. Read more here.

Workplace Issues

• One-third of public health workers have faced some sort of workplace violence that has affected their mental health, according to researchers. Hope M. Tiesman, PhD, a research epidemiologist at the CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and colleagues wrote that “during the COVID-19 pandemic, public health workers (PHWs) were at an increased risk for violence and harassment due to their public health work and experienced adverse mental health conditions.” Read more here. 
• Some bullies wear white coats, new research reveals. While health care workers aim to treat their patients with compassion, empathy and respect, a significant number don’t follow those same ideals when working with each other, according to an article published recently by Massachusetts General Hospital. Christine Porath, Ph.D, an expert in unprofessional workplace behavior who's quoted in the article, told Fox News Digital this week that based on her research, “Too many health care workers and physicians are treated disrespectfully.” Read more here.

Gun Violence

• Amid intense criticism from the left that the White House and Congress haven’t done enough to stop gun violence, the Biden administration has been underwriting an initiative that’s drawn barely any notice. The work started on the campaign trail, when President Biden pitched community violence intervention as a component of his gun violence prevention plan. Once he took office, Biden secured tens of billions of dollars that can be used for community violence intervention, which he and advocates say is critical for reducing recidivism rates. Read more here.
• There's been a substantial increase in firearm-related deaths in the United States over the past three decades and Black men are the most affected, according to new research from a team of emergency room doctors. They're 23 times more likely to experience firearm-related homicide than white men, the study showed. In a study published in the Journal of American Medical Association, Fleegler and colleagues analyzed disparities in firearm-related deaths between 1990 and 2021. They showed firearm-related homicides are greatest among Black men between 20 and 40 years of age. Read more here.

Mental Health and Aging

• Assisted living communities too often fail to meet the needs of older adults and should focus more on residents’ medical and mental health concerns, according to a recent report by a diverse panel of experts. Residents are older, sicker, and more compromised by impairments than in the past: 55% are 85 and older, 77% require help with bathing, 69% with walking, and 49% with toileting, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics. Read more here.

The Opioid Crisis and Addiction Issues

• There were about 181,806 nonfatal opioid overdoses recorded in the United States in the past year, and it’s taken about 9.8 minutes on average for emergency medical services to reach someone who’s overdosing, according to a data dashboard that the White House debuted Thursday. This first-of-its-kind dashboard was developed to track nonfatal opioid overdoses, which have become a growing public health concern as the US struggles with a decades-long opioid epidemic. Read more here.
• People who take medical opioid drugs without a doctor's prescription are 37% more likely than non-users to plan suicide—and the risk is even greater for those with disabilities, who have 73% higher odds of attempting to take their own life. The findings are from a study of over 38,000 adults who took part in the US National Survey on Drug Use and Health in 2019, published in the journal Substance Use and Misuse. Read more here.  
• A nasal spray for reversing opioid overdoses could become available over-the-counter as early as next March after the Food and Drug Administration gave it priority review. Why it matters: Advocacy groups, medical associations and federal agencies have said expanding the availability of naloxone is critical to addressing the addiction epidemic that killed more than 100,000 Americans last year. Making naloxone easier to obtain could also reduce the stigma of asking for a prescription, per a 2021 report from Integrated Pharmacy Research and Practice. Read more here.
• The number of pregnant women and new mothers dying from drug overdoses grew dramatically as the pandemic took hold, reaching a record high in 2020, a new study finds. The research, published in JAMA, provides a stark look at how substance use disorder is harming pregnant people who are less likely than others to seek or receive help for a dependency on opioids and other drugs. Read more here.
• Federal and state authorities are encouraging more rural health care professionals to become certified to prescribe medications containing buprenorphine for patients battling opioid addiction. Andrea Storjohann is glad to see that she’s becoming less of a rarity in rural America. The nurse practitioner prescribes medication to dozens of patients trying to recover from addiction to heroin or opioid painkillers.The general-practice clinic where she works in Marshalltown, housed in a repurposed supermarket building, has no signs designating it as a place for people to seek treatment for drug addiction, which is how Storjohann wants it. “You could be coming here for OB-GYN care. You could be coming here for a sore throat. You could be coming here for any number of reasons,” and no one in the waiting room would know the difference, she said. Privacy is an important part of the treatment. And so is the medication Storjohann prescribes: buprenorphine, which staves off cravings and prevents withdrawal symptoms for people who have stopped misusing opioid drugs. The central Iowa clinic, owned by the nonprofit agency Primary Health Care, has offered buprenorphine since 2016. “We were kind of a unicorn in this part of the state,” Storjohann said, but that’s changing. Read more here.
• Judging by lawmakers’ words, addiction might be the most bipartisan topic in Washington. For years, Democrats and Republicans alike have made speeches, authored bills, and issued statements decrying the national drug overdose crisis. The opioid epidemic even ranks as one of the four elements of President Biden’s “Unity Agenda” — priorities supposedly so uncontroversial that Capitol Hill could tackle them quickly and without fuss. Judging lawmakers by their actions, however, leaves a distinctly different impression. With just weeks remaining in the current session, Congress appears poised to let Biden’s first two years in office come and go without enacting any significant reforms to the country’s system for preventing and treating addiction — a potential missed opportunity that advocates warn could cost thousands of lives. Read more here.
• Indiana State officials will begin distributing millions of dollars to local governments this week as part of a settlement from lawsuits against major drug companies for their roles in the opioid crisis. Representatives from Attorney General Todd Rokita's office, the state auditor's office and the State Budget Agency agreed during a meeting Wednesday that the funds will be distributed before the end of this week, State Budget Director Zachary Jackson said in a statement. Read more here.

Health Care Equity

• The Institute for Healthcare Improvement and American Medical Association are launching a coalition to bring together hundreds of health systems, companies and organizations with the goal of developing a cohesive approach to more equitable patient care and remove areas of inequity and bias.  The Rise to Health coalition, created in partnership with groups like the American Hospital Association and Race Forward, a network focused on striving toward racial equity, also will include individual providers, insurance companies, professional societies and pharmaceutical, research and biotech organizations to share solutions and take collective action, the institute announced Tuesday.  Read more here.

Federal and State Policy

• The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services aims to overhaul health insurance prior authorizations under a propose rule published Tuesday. The regulation would require Medicare Advantage, Medicaid and health insurance exchange carriers to ease their prior authorization processes and respond to “urgent” requests within 72 hours and standard requests within seven days. This would halve the amount of time Medicare Advantage plans currently have to respond to clinicians’ prior authorization requests, according to CMS. Insurers would have to justify denials and publicly report data on their prior authorization decisions. Insurers and providers could also be required to implement technology that would allow patient health information to flow from one payer to another so that medical records would be available when policyholders change insurance companies. Read more here.
• Nearly 5.5 million Americans so far have signed up for health insurance for next year through the Affordable Care Act's marketplace, an 18% increase over the same period last year, according to data released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday. People who want to choose a healthcare plan for 2023 under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, can enroll between Nov. 1 and Jan. 15. However, if they want to be covered as of Jan. 1 they generally need to choose a plan by Dec. 15.  That means the 5.5 Americans have gained or retained their mental health benefits!  Read more here.