General Mental Health Articles
- Download the mental health chatbot Earkick, and you’re greeted by a bandana-wearing panda who could easily fit into a kids’ cartoon. Start talking or typing about anxiety, and the app generates comforting, sympathetic statements therapists are trained to deliver. It’s part of a well-established approach used by therapists, but don’t call it therapy, says Earkick co-founder Karin Andrea Stephan. “When people call us a form of therapy, that’s OK, but we don’t want to go out there and tout it,” says Stephan, a former professional musician and self-described serial entrepreneur. “We just don’t feel comfortable with that.” Read more here.
Youth Mental Health
- Florida will have one of the country’s most restrictive social media bans for minors — if it withstands expected legal challenges — under a bill signed by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The bill will ban social media accounts for children under 14 and require parental permission for 14- and 15-year-olds. It takes effect Jan. 1. Read more here.
- A huge happiness gap is opening between American adults and teens. Depression has hit teens much harder than adults in the smartphone era, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health data. In the oldest age group, America was the world's 10th happiest country. Among the young, America fell to 62nd place. Read more here.
- In 2000, few of Minnesota’s public school students had access to mental health therapy within the school building. Today, over half of students do. A new study, published in the Journal of Human Resources, quantifies how many lives these embedded therapists may have saved. Researchers calculated that suicide attempts decreased by 15 percent across 263 Hennepin County schools that implemented school-based mental health. Health officials want families to know that students can access mental health services at school, whether or not they can pay. Read more here.
The Opioid Crisis and Addiction Issues
- The U.S. recorded 107,941 drug overdose deaths in 2022, according to a new federal report — a total that marks an all-time record but also shows signs that the country’s overdose rate may finally be leveling off after years of steady increase. The 2022 total marks only a slight increase from the drug death toll of 106,699 the year before, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Read more here.
- Nearly three-quarters of people behind bars in the state have a substance use disorder requiring some level of treatment, according to a report from the Connecticut Sentencing Commission, compared to only 17% of the national population overall. For most of the last decade, formerly incarcerated people have accounted for roughly half of the annual overdose deaths in Connecticut. Now, millions of dollars from several large legal settlements are beginning to flow into the state to help combat the deadly opioid epidemic. Read more here.
988 Hotline
- A nonprofit that answers crisis calls in North Dakota is asking lawmakers for greater liability protections for its staff. FirstLink administers the state’s 988 suicide hotline as well as its 211 helpline, which connects people in crisis with social services and other resources. However, North Dakota doesn’t have any laws shielding good-faith operators from liability when callers die by suicide, according to Jeremy Brown, FirstLink’s outreach director. The idea for a liability protection law for suicide hotline workers was first put forward by Health Services Committee Chair Sen. Kristin Roers, R-Fargo, during the committee’s November meeting. Read more here.
Suicide Prevention
- CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control provides states, local health departments, territories, and tribes with technical assistance for assessing and investigating suspected clusters of suicide and suicidal behavior and responding to suspected and confirmed clusters. Suicide clusters are a group of suicides or suicide attempts that occur closer together in time, space, or both than would normally be observed for a community. Read more here.
Research
- What do depression, Alzheimer's disease, and autism have in common? According to new research, they may all be underpinned by an increasing level of acidity in our brains. Scientists have long suspected that our brain chemistry is responsible for many neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders. In a new study, published in the journal eLife, a team of 131 researchers from over 100 different laboratories around the world have demonstrated that decreasing pH levels in the brain, or increased acidity, are a common feature of a diverse range of disorders, including depression, epilepsy, and Alzheimer's. Read more here.
- Agitation, confusion, and poor focus can all be strong risk factors for dementia and death in older age, a large new study has found. Over five million Americans over the age of 65 live with dementia, according to 2014 data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dementia comes in different forms—the most common of which is Alzheimer's disease—and is characterized by an impaired ability to remember, think, and make decisions. Read more here.
Gender-Affirming Care and LGBTQ Issues
- Kansas could become the latest state to ban gender-affirming health care for minors after its Republican-dominated Legislature sent a bill prohibiting transgender youth from accessing treatments to the governor’s desk. The bill, which passed both the state House and Senate on Wednesday, is expected to be rejected by Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, who vetoed a similar measure last year. Republicans, who hold supermajorities in both chambers, failed to override Kelly’s veto of that bill and another measure to ban transgender women and girls from female school sports teams after several GOP moderates voted against overriding the governor. Read more here.
- Transgender people in Idaho will no longer be able to use Medicaid and other publicly funded programs to help cover the cost of gender-affirming medical care under a new state law set to take effect in July. Republican Gov. Brad Little quietly signed the measure Wednesday, a day after receiving it from Idaho’s GOP-controlled Legislature. The law, which is set to take effect July 1, bars the use of public funds for puberty blockers, hormones, and surgeries for transgender minors and adults and prevents government-owned facilities from providing them. Read more here.
Federal and State Policy
- The latest government funding deal wasn't just stripped of big health policy changes — it also lacks significant raises for a host of federal health agencies. A gridlocked Congress essentially settled on flat funding for the Department of Health and Human Services, avoiding an automatic sequester cut while leaving pandemic preparedness, mental health, biomedical research, and public health efforts running at or near the status quo. Read more here.
- President Joe Biden is widening a critical window for low-income Americans to join Obamacare, in a move aimed at reinforcing a central element of his reelection bid: That he presided over a historic expansion of health care coverage. Tens of millions of people eliminated from Medicaid would now have until Nov. 30 to sign up for new coverage under a plan to be announced by the Department of Health and Human Services and first shared with POLITICO — an extension from the July 31 deadline initially set for the special enrollment period. Read more here.
- Mississippi lawmakers will try to negotiate on expanding Medicaid in one of the poorest states in the U.S. after the Senate voted for a vastly different plan than one proposed by the House. The upper chamber’s proposal would insure fewer people and bring less federal money to the state than the version approved by the House last month. However, the Senate’s approach includes a tougher work requirement and measures to prevent a wider expansion of Medicaid benefits in the future. Read more here.
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