General Mental Health Issues
- The 14 million Americans who care for a chronically ill or injured veteran face challenges such as financial insecurity, stress, and a lack of support that warrant attention by advocacy groups and the federal government, a new report has found. According to the report, about half those caring for a younger veteran had not seen a doctor in the past year, and 42% met the criteria for depression. Roughly 20% said they had considered suicide in the past year. Read more here.
Youth Mental Health
- Childhood trauma can raise the risk of developing major diseases later in life that vary based on a person's unique experiences and even their sex, new research concludes. Although it's widely understood that trauma early in life has biological and real-world health impacts, the findings shed light on how different life experiences can shape the way the body functions and make a person susceptible to chronic diseases. Understanding the connections, the UCLA Health-led research team argues, can help customize interventions based on adverse childhood experiences, or "ACEs." Read more here.
- More than 1,000 U.S. children lost a parent or sibling every day in 2022, according to the organization’s estimate. That same year, 40 North Carolina children experienced the death of a parent or sibling every day. Children handle grief differently from adults and from each other, experts say. Some of that is due to their age, their capacity to understand what has happened, and their ability to communicate how they are feeling, said Mary Wise-Kriplani, a licensed clinical social worker and doctoral researcher at the Durham-based Center for Child and Family Health. Read more here.
The Opioid Crisis and Addiction Issues
- Infants with neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome (NOWS) had a higher risk of hospital readmission than other newborns, a retrospective cohort study suggested. Among nearly 14 million newborns, the 90-day, all-cause readmission rate was 4.2% for those with NOWS versus 3% for those without NOWS (P<0.001). Read more here.
Gun Control
- We often focus on the people killed by guns. However, there were also people wounded at each of these recent shootings, people who will live for the rest of their lives with physical scars and mental trauma. Recent research from the Violence Prevention Project Research Center at Hamline University shows that the mental health toll of gun violence is staggering. Nearly half of all Minnesotans are afraid of being shot in a public place. Read more here.
- California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed several gun control measures, including one that allows the court to consider stalking and animal cruelty as grounds to restrict access to firearms. The state already has some of the strictest gun laws in the country. The new laws signed by Newsom will expand restrictions on who could own firearms, prevent the proliferation of “ghost guns,” and increase protections for domestic violence survivors. Read more here.
Suicide Statistics and Prevention
- U.S. suicides last year remained at about the highest level in the nation’s history, preliminary data suggests. A little over 49,300 suicide deaths were reported in 2023, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That number that could grow a little as some death investigations are wrapped up and reported. Just under 49,500 were reported in 2022, according to final data released. Read more here.
- Any veteran who wants a lockbox to store their firearm would be able to get one for free from the Department of Veterans Affairs under a bipartisan bill introduced in the House aimed at curbing veteran suicides. The bill, which has won the endorsement of a firearms industry group in addition to gun control groups, builds off an existing pilot program at the VA that provides lockboxes to at-risk veterans. Read more here.
Gender-Affirming Care and LGBTQ Issues
- States that passed anti-transgender laws aimed at minors saw suicide attempts by transgender and gender nonconforming teenagers increase by as much as 72% in the following years, a new study by The Trevor Project says. The peer-reviewed study, published in the journal Nature Human Behavior, looked at survey data from young people in 19 states, comparing rates of suicide attempts before and after bans passed. Read more here.
- The White House claimed that “thousands” of veterans could benefit when President Biden announced this summer he was issuing pardons to gay veterans who were forced out of the military because of their sexual orientation “and have carried the burden of this great injustice for decades.” However, three months later, only eight veterans have applied for pardons—six from the Air Force, two from the Army, and none from the Coast Guard, Navy, or Marines. Read more here.
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