General Mental Health Issues
- Together, Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) are the largest payers of mental health services in the US. Almost 40% of adult Medicaid and CHIP beneficiaries under age 65 experience mental illness and/or substance use disorders (SUD). Of these beneficiaries, 8% with mental illness and 6% with SUD use inpatient services, and 3% and 10%, respectively, visit emergency departments. Research has shown that timely follow-up care for behavioral health-related hospitalizations and emergency department visits is associated with fewer hospital readmissions, increased medication adherence, and decreased suicidal ideation. Read more here.
- Candia-Bailey’s story mirrors a phenomenon associated with Black women and girls known as “weathering.” Coined in 2006 by researcher Arline Geronimus, weathering describes how marginalized communities experience “early health deterioration as a consequence of the cumulative impact of repeated experience with social or economic adversity and political marginalization.” Read more here.
- While studies have thoroughly debunked the full moon theory, it was still pretty fascinating to see that some studies found at least some association between a full moon and health care demand. That includes observed increases in ambulance transport due to traffic accidents, gastrointestinal bleeding, and some psychiatric hospital admissions. Read more here.
The Opioid Crisis and Addiction Issues
- Even with teen opioid overdose deaths soaring, a new study finds most pediatricians aren't prepared to treat young patients struggling with addiction. The nationwide survey was conducted by researchers at Mass General for Children and Yale School of Medicine. Of those pediatricians surveyed, 48% said they felt prepared to counsel teen patients struggling with opioid use. That's despite the fact nearly all of those surveyed believe it's their responsibility to do so. Read more here.
- While dry January and damp lifestyles have taken off on TikTok, the United States has already experienced a spike in deaths related to excessive alcohol. In 2020-21, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, there were an average of about 488 deaths per day from excessive alcohol drinking, according to a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Alcohol is a leading cause of preventable death. Read more here.
- The contrast is striking. In the United States, drug deaths are shatteringly common, killing roughly 112,000 people a year. In Portugal, weeks sometimes go by in the entire country without a single fatal overdose. Read more here.
Social Determinants
- Food access. Housing. Education. Job security. Climate change. These and other nonmedical factors that shape where people are born, live, and work have become known as social determinants of health. Furthermore, though they are not related to the health care system, they arguably have an even bigger impact on people’s health outcomes, well-being, and daily life. Read more here.
Gender-Affirming Care and Related Issues
- The major global medical association for endocrinologists will review its clinical guidelines for gender-affirming care, the Endocrine Society told CNN. Despite recent moves by some US states to restrict or ban such care, the society said it’s a routine update that was not prompted by politics. The society’s guidelines help the organization’s 18,000 members – doctors, nurses, educators, and students – who focus on hormone-related health determine the best practices to provide appropriate care for people who are transgender and gender-diverse. Read more here.
- The Department of Veterans Affairs will not move forward with covering gender-affirmation surgery for transgender veterans while it studies the effects of a sweeping law that expanded VA eligibility to millions of veterans, VA Secretary Denis McDonough confirmed. McDonough did not rule out proceeding with covering gender-affirmation surgery after the PACT Act analysis is done. However, the move further delays the availability of a treatment that transgender veterans have been eagerly anticipating since McDonough first announced the VA would provide it two and a half years ago -- a year before the PACT Act became law. Read more here.
- Kansas enacted a law last year that ended legal recognition of transgender identities. The measure says there are only two sexes, male and female, that are based on a person’s “biological reproductive system” at birth. That law and others introduced around the nation this year — often labeled as “bills of rights” for women — are part of a push by conservatives who say states have a legitimate interest in restricting transgender people from competing on sports teams or using bathrooms that align with their gender identity. Read more here.
- Republican lawmakers in several states have resurrected and expanded the fight over whether transgender people may use bathrooms and other facilities that do not match their sex assigned at birth. At least one bill goes so far as making it a crime for a transgender person to enter a facility that doesn’t match the sex listed on their birth certificate. The debate has been popping up in statehouses across the nation in recent months, predominantly in conservative, rural states, including at a hearing of the Arizona Senate’s Health and Human Services Committee in February. Read more here.
- When Steven Rocha received his new driver's license — one that matched his gender expression — he nearly cried. There were so many spaces he would have to present his ID, and as a queer transgender man, it was "always kind of uncomfortable and sometimes scary depending on where I was to essentially be outed by my license that wasn't up to date." Without identification that matches their gender expression, trans Floridians face the risk of being outed at every traffic stop, visit to the polls, beer run, hotel check-in and more, advocates say. Read more here.
- Transgender and gender-nonconforming adults are more likely to be homeless, with many of them kicked out of their homes by disapproving relatives, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. About 1 in 5 transgender people have experienced homelessness at some point, the National Center for Transgender Equality reports, and Black people make up a disproportionate number of them. Read more here.
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