General Mental Health Articles
- Two of the country's biggest unions have joined a coalition calling on federal regulators to protect workers' mental health the way they enforce standards for physical health and safety. Why it matters: The press comes amid widespread post-pandemic burnout, growing awareness of the country's worsening mental health and some of the strongest pro-union sentiment in decades. Read more here.
- There's one death every 11 minutes because of suicide. In any given day, it takes the lives of about 132 people and, on average, 12 are children. Doctors, like Nicholas Westers, say this is a problem we need to talk about. "If you're wondering if your child who is struggling is maybe thinking about suicide, it's okay to ask," he said. "We know that even asking and talking about it can actually decrease the risk of attempting suicide if they're thinking about suicide and it's not going to put the idea in their head." Read more here.
- The health system in Britain is now deploying AI-powered mental health tools in large-scale clinical settings, while U.S. health insurance companies are trialing them. Why it matters: AI may be able to help health systems address an overload of patients in need of mental health care. Driving the news: A diagnostic "e-triage" tool from Limbic, a British AI startup, has screened more than 210,000 patients with a claimed 93% accuracy across the eight most common mental disorders, including depression, anxiety and PTSD, co-founder Ross Harper, a computational neuroscientist, told Axios. Read more here.
- A months-long investigation by Spotlight PA and the Pittsburgh Institute for Nonprofit Journalism found that Pennsylvania’s system for determining whether someone is mentally fit to stand trial often traps them in the very place making them worse — jail. In “A Criminal Solution,” the newsrooms reported that Pennsylvania laws and policies meant to aid people with severe mental health issues and who have been accused of a crime often do just the opposite. Read more here.
- Today, Berthia is a suicide prevention advocate and founder of the Kevin Berthia Foundation. He believes the Covid-19 public health emergency pushed society over a tipping point that increased compassion and chipped at stigma, helping to normalize mental health discussions. Together, the pandemic and 988 — the SAMHSA-funded 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (formerly the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline) — put mental health at the forefront in a way Berthia hasn’t seen before. Read more here.
- A new study published last week suggests the psychedelic drug MDMA, also known as Ecstasy or Molly, can reduce symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, and some expect the treatment to be approved by 2024. The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), a non-profit research and educational organization that was formed in 1986 and focuses on the medical, legal and cultural contexts for how people can benefit from the "careful" uses of psychedelics and marijuana, sponsored the study. Read more here… (MAPS), a non-profit research and educational organization that was formed in 1986 and focuses on the medical, legal and cultural contexts for how people can benefit from the "careful" uses of psychedelics and marijuana, sponsored the study. Read more here.
- My interviews with mothers from across the U.S. and around the world tell a story that I hope will put “mom rage” on the map — not as an individual problem, but as a hidden emotional crisis affecting mothers spanning socioeconomics, sexuality, race, and religious affiliation. It turns out mom rage is a maternal mental health crisis that stems from a lack of good mother care. The U.S. is one of only a handful of nations that doesn’t offer paid family leave. Even surviving birth can be iffy in the U.S., which has the highest maternal mortality rate of all industrialized nations. Read more here.
- A Washington Post article last month titled, "5,000 pilots suspected of hiding major health issues. Most are still flying," spurred discussions in our department. While we too are like the millions of Americans who trust and depend on our exceptionally safe aerospace system, we have a slightly different perspective on this story. While the article was compelling, we, as researchers of pilot healthcare-seeking behavior, know that there is more to the story. Read more here.
- The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) announced $16.3 million in new grants last week to community-led youth suicide prevention projects amid a nationwide surge in reported teen mental health issues. Driving the news: The funding is part of a new media and outreach campaign launched by CDPH that aims to support youth disproportionately impacted by suicide, such as Black, Indigenous and LGBTQ populations. Read more here.
- A new study in the Journal of Pediatrics finds errors involving ADHD medications in kids have risen sharply over the past two decades. Researchers at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Ohio studied national poison data from 2000 through 2021 and found that errors involving ADHD medications increased by almost 300% in people under 20 during that period. Two-thirds of the cases occurred in kids ages 6 to 12. The most common error was accidentally taking or being given mediation twice, followed by taking someone else's medication or taking the wrong medication. Read more here.
Veterans and Mental Health
- Commanders across the military are now required to help troops get mental health care as soon as possible to help prevent suicides under a new law called the Brandon Act. The Military Crisis Line is 988, followed by 1, or access an online chat by texting 838255. Military OneSource also provides 12 counseling sessions with a community provider. Sessions can be requested at www.militaryonesourceconnect.org/. It’s designed to address an often reported concern of commanders preventing service members from trying to get help, explained retired Army Lt. Col. Damian McCabe, director of behavioral health for UCHealth’s southern region. He is also leading a pilot project to reduce veteran suicides. Read more here.
Native Americans and Mental Health
- New data shows a dramatic rise in the U.S. suicide rate, especially for Native Americans and Alaska Natives. From 2000 to 2020, the national rate grew 30%, according to an analysis from Pew Charitable Trusts. For Native Americans and Alaska Natives, the rate among women spiked 135%, and the rate among men jumped 92%. A major factor is the historical trauma caused by colonization and the boarding school era, said Emily Edmunds Haroz, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health. Read more here.
The Opioid Crisis and Addiction Issues
- An emotional New York City Mayor Eric Adams Monday denounced the suspects accused of the alleged opioid exposure in a Bronx day care last week, which left one toddler dead and sent three others to the hospital, and called for a "national assault" on the epidemic. Day care operator Grei Mendez and tenant Carlisto Acevedo Brito were arrested on charges including murder, manslaughter and assault and ordered to be held without bail following the "reckless, depraved" death of Nicholas Dominici, 1, last week prosecutors said. The three other victims were hospitalized, treated with Narcan, and recovering following the Friday incident, police said. Read more here.
- More than 100,000 people died of an opioid overdose nationwide in 2022 and more than two-thirds of those deaths involved synthetic opioids. Synthetic opioids are substances that are synthesized in a laboratory and act on the same targets in the brain as natural opioids to reduce pain. In contrast, natural opioids — including heroin, morphine, and codeine — are naturally occurring substances extracted from the seed pod of certain varieties of poppy plants. Fentanyl is the most commonly used synthetic opioid. Read more here.
- The fentanyl crisis doesn't discriminate. It touches the youngest Minnesotans and its hold spans across demographics. Fentanyl poisoning and overdose deaths skyrocketed in the last few years. Some of the victims are children. It's making headlines in Minnesota. Two charged in the fentanyl-related death of a 17-month-old in Ramsey County. A Maple Plain mother charged with manslaughter after her 6-year-old son chewed on a drug-tainted dollar bill. A 7-year-old in St. Paul dead from fentanyl poisoning. A 1-year-old in Minneapolis. Every year, calls of kids exposed to fentanyl to Minnesota Poison Center climbs. Read more here.
- Fentanyl, the powerful synthetic opioid, has become increasingly prevalent and affordable in Utah, state law enforcement officials told lawmakers. During a Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Interim Committee meeting on Monday, lawmakers were shown “alarming data” from members of the Utah Department of Public Safety. In the last few years, the synthetic opioid has increasingly turned up in seizures and fueled overdose deaths, said Tanner Jensen, director of the statewide information and analysis center at the Department of Public Safety. Fentanyl, he said, “is the greatest drug threat in Utah.” Read more here.
- New Mexico’s top insurance regulator on Tuesday ordered health insurance companies to expand timely access to behavioral health services in response to the governor recently declaring a public health emergency over gun violence in the state’s largest metropolitan area. Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham initially sought to ban people from the open and concealed carry of firearms in Albuquerque and surrounding Bernalillo County, but a federal judge put that effort on hold pending the outcome of multiple legal challenges. Read more here.
- Gov. Mike DeWine announced a new gun initiative created to decrease gun violence within Ohio. DeWine was joined by state, local, and federal leaders for the debut of the Central Ohio Crime Gun Intelligence Center (CGIC). This center serves to both investigate and eliminate gun violence within Central Ohio using the help of firearm evidence examiners, investigators, and intelligence analysts, according to a media release. Read more here.
- Kai Koerber was a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School when a gunman murdered 14 students and three staff members there on Valentine’s Day in 2018. Seeing his peers — and himself — struggle with returning to normal, he wanted to do something to help people manage their emotions on their own terms. The result was Joy, which uses artificial intelligence to suggest bite-sized mindfulness activities for people based on how they are feeling. The algorithm Koerber’s team built is designed to recognize how a person feels from the sound of their voice — regardless of the words or language they speak. Read more here.
- There have now been 501 mass shootings in the U.S. this year. Driving the news: A shooting that wounded four people in Denver, Colorado, on Saturday night marked the country's 500th mass shooting in 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Hours later, that increased to 501 mass shootings after one person died and five others were wounded in El Paso, Texas, early Sunday. By the numbers: Just five years ago, the country had never experienced 500 mass shootings in one year. Read more here.
- The vast majority of Americans across partisan lines agree with Bell, according to a new 19th News/SurveyMonkey poll. Eighty-two percent of Americans support a federal law banning those convicted of domestic violence from purchasing a gun, including 81 percent of Republicans and 91 percent of Democrats. Bell, a political independent for whom voter fraud is the most important issue, told The 19th that she strongly supports a ban on people with domestic violence convictions from owning guns, as well as one on those with domestic violence restraining orders. Read more here.
Social Isolation and Loneliness
- Loneliness among both seniors and younger people is a health problem that needs more attention, Kelsey McNamara, MPH, senior director of research at Papa, an organization that provides paid companionship to people in need of social support, said at the Population Health Colloquium. "Loneliness increases the risk of premature death, independent of other kinds of physical and mental health conditions," said McNamara. Read more here.
- Inflation is broadly retreating in the U.S. economy. But starting in October, health insurance is poised to act as a countervailing force that buoys inflation for about a year, economists said. That’s significant at a time when policymakers are using inflation data to determine how to set interest rates. The underlying reason for this dynamic is a quirk in how the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — which publishes the consumer price index, a widely tracked measure of inflation — assesses changes in health insurance costs. Read more here.
- U.S. employers are bracing for the largest increase in health insurance costs in a decade next year, according to forecasts from healthcare consultants, but workers may be somewhat spared this time around in a tight labor market. Benefit consultants from Mercer, Aon (AON.N) and Willis Towers Watson (WTW.O) see employer healthcare costs jumping 5.4% to 8.5% in 2024 due to medical inflation, soaring demand for costly weight-loss drugs and wider availability of high-priced gene therapies. Read more here.
- Employers girding themselves for an especially pricey health care benefits season this fall are pushing back harder in negotiations, armed with new price transparency data and emboldened by increased industry scrutiny. Why it matters: Employers frustrated that they haven't been getting the best deals on health care are using the data to demand better terms in discussions with insurers and pharmacy benefit managers, industry experts said. There have been some initial signs these strategies have been successful, but experts said it will take larger collective change among employers to generate more significant savings. Read more here.
- Vice President Kamala Harris said Thursday that the Biden administration is taking the first steps toward removing medical bills from people’s credit scores, which could improve ratings for millions of people. Harris said that would make it easier for them to obtain an auto loan or a home mortgage. Roughly one in five people report having medical debt. The vice president said the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is beginning the rulemaking process to make the change. The agency said in a statement that including medical debt in credit scores is problematic because “mistakes and inaccuracies in medical billing are common.” Read more here.
- Consuming large amounts of ultraprocessed foods may be linked to depression, research published Wednesday found. Ultraprocessed foods are high in salt, sugar, hydrogenated fats and additives. They include quintessential junk food items such as chips and soda, but also a lot of ready-to-eat meals, yogurts and packaged bread. The study, published in the journal JAMA Open Network, looked at the eating habits and mental health status of more than 31,000 women between the ages of 42 and 62. Read more here.
- By the same logic, suppressing fears or anxieties is commonly assumed to negatively impact one's mental health. "Part of the goal of psychotherapy is to figure out what you’ve repressed and bring it back and deal with it and then you’ll be better," said Michael Anderson, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge. But Anderson's new research challenges that idea, suggesting instead that suppressing negative thoughts may in fact improve symptoms of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Read more here.
Medicaid Redetermination and Related Issues
- The expiration of a pandemic-era federal provision that prevented states from kicking Medicaid participants off the rolls has left North Carolina with the unprecedented challenge of reviewing the eligibility of more than 2.5 million residents. Known as the continuous coverage requirement, the mandate allowed beneficiaries to skip the renewal process for Medicaid during the first three years of the COVID-19 pandemic. All participants, even those who no longer qualified for the program, were automatically re-enrolled, swelling the program from 2.1 million beneficiaries in March 2020 to just under 3 million people qualifying for coverage in May of this year. Read more here.
- Enrollment in Florida’s Medicaid program dropped by more than 105,000 people in August, continuing decreases after the end of a federal public health emergency stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. Enrollment totaled 5,254,460 people in August, down from 5,360,069 in July, according to data posted on the state Agency for Health Care Administration website. Overall, more than 525,000 people have lost coverage in Florida since the process began. The totals have decreased since hitting 5,778,536 in April. Read more here.
- North Carolina Statehouse leaders have finally announced a budget deal, which will fund the state and also allow for Medicaid expansion to go into effect in coming months. For weeks, leaders in the Senate and the House of Representatives tussled over the issue of adding legalization of casinos into the $30 billion state budget. Senate leader Phil Berger (R-Eden) was all in on the casino proposal, which would have won one of the four proposed casinos for his home in Rockingham County. Read more here.
- A federal appeals court is considering cases out of North Carolina and West Virginia that could have significant implications on whether individual states are required to cover health care for transgender people with government-sponsored insurance. The Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in cases Thursday involving the coverage of gender-affirming care by North Carolina’s state employee health plan and the coverage of gender-affirming surgery by West Virginia Medicaid. Read more here.
- The majority of Americans believe adults, but not minors, should be able to access gender-affirming care — and opinions are significantly influenced by whether they personally know someone who is transgender, a new 19th News/SurveyMonkey poll finds. But only 17 percent of Americans think that restricting access to gender-affirming care should be a focus for politicians, even as political rhetoric against transgender people continues to rise, and more states restrict gender-affirming care for both minors and adults. Read more here.
- As Republican-led states have rushed to ban gender-affirming for minors, some families with transgender children found a bit of solace: At least they lived in states that would allow those already receiving puberty blockers or hormone therapy to continue. But in some places, including Missouri and North Dakota, the care has abruptly been halted because medical providers are wary of harsh liability provisions in those same laws — one of multiple reasons that advocates say care has become harder to access even where it remains legal. Read more here.
Federal and State and Judicial Policy
- A Medicare effort to boost payments to primary care doctors and better coordinate care for patients with complex medical needs has set off a lobbying frenzy to forestall steep cuts specialists would face as a result. Why it matters: The fight over physician payments underscores how Medicare's strict budgeting rules can create unintended consequences, like pitting medical specialties against each other. Medicare physician payment is based on a set pot of money — meaning annual payment increases in one area set off decreases in another. Read more here.
- It almost seemed anti-climatic Thursday afternoon and early Friday morning when lawmakers voted on the nearly $30 billion state budget. The spending plan — flush with hundreds of millions of dollars for mental and behavioral health care, a new children’s hospital “somewhere in the Triangle,” crisis pregnancy centers, a new rural health program, enhancements to the medical examiner and autopsy system, health care workforce incentives, Medicaid expansion and more — was approved along party lines with little fanfare. Read more here.
- A federal appeals court has overturned a lower court ruling that found Mississippi relies too much on institutionalizing people with mental health conditions rather than providing care in their communities. The decision came Wednesday from three judges on the conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. They wrote that the federal government, which sued Mississippi, failed to prove that the state discriminated against people with mental health conditions in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The appeals court judges also wrote that a remedial order by U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves, which sought to make changes in Mississippi’s mental health system, “vastly exceeds the scope of claimed liability.” Read more here.
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