Youth Mental Health
- Students in Pennsylvania may soon be allowed to take "mental health days." According to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the pandemic negatively affected the mental health of many children and youth, creating even more public awareness of this pre-existing problem." Read more here.
- The owner of Snapchat is backing a bill meant to bolster online protections for children on social media, the first company to publicly split from its trade shop days before the company’s CEO prepares to testify on Capitol Hill. Read more here.
- When it comes to family, many might assume "the more, the merrier," but for some, that might not be the case, according to a recent study. Researchers from The Ohio State University found that teens with a greater number of siblings reported poorer mental health than those who came from smaller families. Read more here.
Climate Disasters and Mental Health (Impact on Youth)
- A handful of studies have sought to quantify the scope and scale of the mental health consequences of disasters that have occurred in the recent past, such as Hurricane Andrew in 1992, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and Hurricane Irma in 2017. The results point to an alarming trend: the stress and trauma has resounding mental health repercussions that stretch on for months, even years, after the disaster makes its first impact and can include anxiety, depression, sleep disorders, post-traumatic stress, and sometimes suicidal ideation and suicide follow disasters. Read more here.
Aging Issues
- The American population is aging — by 2060, nearly one in four Americans will be 65 or older, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Assisted living facilities are already inadequately prepared for the aging population, witnesses told a Senate panel during a Thursday hearing. Read more here.
Abortion Restrictions and Mental Health Implications
- More than 64,000 women and girls became pregnant because of rape in states that implemented abortion bans after Roe v. Wade was overruled, according to a new research estimate published online. The research letter, published by JAMA Internal Medicine and led by the medical director at Planned Parenthood of Montana, estimated that nearly 520,000 rapes were associated with 64,565 pregnancies across 14 states, most of which had no exceptions that allowed for terminations of pregnancies that occurred as a result of rape. Read more here.
Gun Safety and Mental Health
- This is the reality of suicide prevention work in Wyoming, which has one of the highest gun ownership rates in the United States. For most of the last decade, Wyoming has also had one of the highest suicide rates and, specifically, high gun suicide rates. Firearms are used in roughly 75% of suicides in the Cowboy State, compared with just over 50% nationally. Read more here.
The Opioid Crisis and Addiction Issues
- The battle to keep fentanyl off New York City streets continues. Federal agents seized the highest amount of fentanyl ever in the Big Apple last year, and of all the fentanyl seized in the United States last year, New York City accounted for 10%. CBS New York recently sat down for an exclusive interview with the Drug Enforcement Administration's Special Agent in Charge. "This has been the biggest drug threat we have ever seen in the history of DEA," Frank Tarentino said. Read more here.
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported that in the 12-month period ending last August, about 74,000 people died from fentanyl-related overdoses. While politicians and policymakers amp up calls for more brutal crackdowns on fentanyl smuggling, a “new” class of synthetic opioids has been showing up in overdose victims with the potential to make America look back on the fentanyl crisis as “the good old days.” Read more here.
- The Washington state attorney general announced a $149.5 million settlement Wednesday with drugmaker Johnson & Johnson, more than four years after the state sued the company over its role in the opioid addiction crisis. The attorney general’s announcement came as opioid overdose deaths more than doubled from 2019 to 2022, with 2,048 deaths recorded in 2022, according to the most recent numbers from the Washington State Department of Health. Read more here.
Health Insurance
- A record 21.3 million people signed up for health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplaces this year, with the largest enrollment increases tallied in red states. The 30.7% annual increase in ACA sign-ups comes as former President Trump's renewed calls for repeal have again raised doubts about the law's future. States with the largest year-over-year increase in sign-ups include West Virginia (80.2%), Louisiana (75.9%), Ohio (62.2%), Indiana (59.6%), and Tennessee (59.5%), according to data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees the marketplaces. Read more here.
- Imagine this scene: you are a cancer patient already navigating fear and uncertainty around your treatment, when you inexplicably cannot access the care recommended by your cancer doctor. This turns out to be because of a perverse hurdle imposed by your insurance company — called a prior authorization — that ends in a denial of care. You would not be alone; more than 1 in 5 (22%) cancer patients report not getting care recommended by their doctor because of these delays or denials. Read more here.
Medicaid Redetermination
- New Medicaid numbers reveal Florida seems to have a growing number of children without health insurance. The state's December update shows that over 911,000 Floridians were disenrolled from Medicaid since the Department of Children & Families began its redetermination process in April. Of that total, about 420,000 were children. Enrollment has steadily decreased since the end of a federal COVID public health emergency last spring. Read more here.
Gender-Affirming Care
- The Ohio Senate voted Wednesday to override Gov. Mike DeWine's veto of legislation that restricts medical care for transgender minors and blocks transgender girls from female sports. The bill prohibits doctors from prescribing hormones, puberty blockers, or gender reassignment surgery before patients turn 18 and requires mental health providers to get parental permission to diagnose and treat gender dysphoria. It also bans transgender girls and women from playing on female sports teams in high school and college. DeWine vetoed the legislation in December. Read more here.
- You’ll often hear lawmakers, activists, and pundits argue that many transgender people regret their decision to have gender-affirming surgeries – a belief that’s been fueling a wave of legislation that restricts access to gender-affirming health care. Gender-affirming care can include surgical procedures such as facial reconstruction, chest or “top” surgery, and genital or “bottom” surgery. However, in an article recently published in JAMA Surgery, the notion that transgender people often regret gender-affirming surgeries is challenged. Read more here.
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