General Articles
- All young and middle-age adults should be screened regularly for anxiety and depression, even if they don't have symptoms, an influential public health group said Tuesday. While the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has recommended doctors assess patients for depression since 2002, it is the first time the group has advocated for routine screening of anxiety in adults. Pregnant women and those who gave birth within the past year were highlighted as people who should be screened. The guidance comes as emotional stress has skyrocketed in recent years, increasing demands on the limited number of counselors and therapists nationwide. Read more here.
- The two boys are among more than 140 examples described by emergency room doctors who are calling attention to "crisis levels" of patients lingering in hospital emergency rooms with mental health or other medical care needs as they wait to be admitted to hospitals or other settings. The American College of Emergency Physicians, Emergency Nurses Association and the National Alliance on Mental Illness said Wednesday legislative and regulatory fixes are needed to reduce boarding. Read more here.
- To its credit, ChatGPT has thus far capably provided support to users struggling with mental health issues. It utilized learning algorithms to offer personalized advice and guidance based on my unique situation. Furthermore, it boasted about its 24/7 availability, touting accessibility whenever I needed it, without having to wait another week until my next appointment. Read more here.
- If you're feeling stressed but can't fit in a stress-relieving workout today, you may literally need a hug. Why it matters: Americans are stressed out. While exercise is a proven way to support mental health — which made evolutionary sense for our ancestors — it's not the only way to de-stress. There are other options we often overlook. Read more here.
- I'm interested to hear both of your perspectives on how celebrities can help and hurt. I'll frame it like this: I know there's a lot of data to show when a prominent famous person completes suicide, there's been in some countries like a copycat effect -- increased attempts and completions. On the other hand, you have, I think for the first time that I can remember, people being very open about their mental health struggles. Does every celebrity need a primer on how to be a force for good in social media for kids? Read more here. (Access to this article requires free registration.)
- New research published in BMC Medicine suggests that using antidepressants (ADs), especially selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), could help prevent COVID-19 infection. The study was based on infection trends seen among 5,664 patients admitted for mental health care at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust sites during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (April to December 2020). Read more here.
- Tyrell Terry retired from the NBA at 22 years old due to the debilitating symptoms of his anxiety. The former college star has turned to psychedelic therapy for help, he told The New York Times. Psychedelic drugs have shown promise in treating mental health issues like anxiety and depression. Tyrell Terry — a former college basketball star and second-round NBA draft pick — made waves late last year when he retired from the pros at just 22 years old. Read more here.
Youth Mental Health
- "I can’t do anything right." "I do not enjoy life." "My life is not useful." The share of teens who agree with these phrases has doubled over the past decade, according to an annual poll conducted by the University of Michigan — and one expert asserts that the increase in depressive symptoms is tied to the rise of social media. Read more here.
Impact of the Pandemic
- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), issued a new advisory today: Identification and Management of Mental Health Symptoms and Conditions Associated with Long COVID. Long COVID can have devastating effects on the mental health of those who experience it, as well as their families, due to a number of factors, including chronic illness (both physical and mental), social isolation, financial insecurity, caregiver burnout, and grief, according to the advisory issued today. Read more here.
- An increase in suicides, drug overdoses and alcohol-induced deaths combined with an increase of people dying from treatable conditions led to historically high rates of premature deaths nationwide from 2019 to 2021, according to a new Commonwealth Fund Scorecard on State Health System Performance. The big picture: Both health care access and life expectancy declined in the U.S. during that time despite record-low uninsured rates. Read more here.
- As many as 1 in 10 UK healthcare workers (HCWs) had suicidal thoughts during the first year of the pandemic, according to a study yesterday in PLOS One. The findings contribute to a growing body of knowledge concerning the mental health strains experienced by health professionals over the past 3 years. The data came from longitudinal online surveys completed by healthcare workers, students, and volunteers in 17 National Health Service (NHS) Trusts across England during the COVID-19 pandemic. Read more here.
Mental Health Equity
- June is Men’s Health Month. In recent years, the topic of mental health has gained much needed attention, shedding light on the challenges faced by various communities. In Miami, this is a critical issues, about which any discussion must help people better understand the unique challenges men face, especially Black and brown men, and highlight the importance of addressing their mental well-being. To truly address the mental-health disparities men face, it is essential to implement comprehensive strategies. Read more here.
Telehealth
- Question: Were state-level policy changes from 2019 to 2022 associated with the expansion of telehealth services at mental health treatment facilities throughout the US? Findings: In this cohort study of 12 828 mental health treatment facilities, 4 state policies pertaining to payment parity, audio-only telehealth service reimbursement, and interstate licensure compacts were associated with increased telehealth availability during the COVID-19 pandemic in the US. However, access disparities persisted in counties with a higher proportion of Black residents and among Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program recipients. Read more here.
- Americans struggle to enjoy reasonable and timely access to health care. While inadequate access predates the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic’s disruption of traditional delivery modalities has prompted anew questions around how Americans access care. Telehealth has featured prominently in this conversation. This includes not only synchronous audio-visual and audio-only telehealth, but asynchronous forms such as remote patient monitoring, e-visits, and provider-to-provider consultation. Telehealth’s ability to address mobility, transportation, and geographic barriers has begun to transform the way individuals pursue care. Read more here.
The Opioid Crisis and Addiction Issues
- Until now, there hasn’t been a cohesive set of guidelines for managing surgical pain in patients with a history of addiction and/or opioid tolerance. To address this, the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) gathered 15 medical organizations representing over 500,000 physicians to develop seven guiding principles to improve pain management before, during and after surgery for these patients. The guidelines have been published in the Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine journal. Read more here.
988 Hotline
- Over 1,000 times a day, distressed people call crisis support lines operated by Protocall Services. Its counselors are carefully trained for the sensitive and taxing conversations, but even with supervision on the job, major errors, like failing to screen for suicide, can go undetected. So Portland, Ore.-based Protocall is working with a company called Lyssn to investigate if technology can help keep call quality high. Lyssn’s platform uses AI to analyze and review recordings of behavioral health encounters, and the two companies were recently awarded a $2 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to adapt the tech for use in crisis calls. Read more here.
Health Insurance and Health Care Spending
- National health expenditures are projected to grow 5.4 percent, on average, over the course of 2022–31 and to account for roughly 20 percent of the economy by the end of that period. The insured share of the population is anticipated to exceed 92 percent through 2023, in part as a result of record-high Medicaid enrollment, and then decline toward 90 percent as coverage requirements related to the COVID-19 public health emergency expire. Read more here.
Climate Change
- Over a week ago, “the smoke” came to Baltimore. It was bizarre to wake up in the morning to see an eerily red sun and not much else. The smoke from the Canadian wildfires has been a powerful visual reminder of our growing climate emergency, it is also a harbinger of the growing climate health disaster. Hospitals in New York City have reported an increase in asthma-related ER visits over the past week, and the World Health Organization predicts there will be an additional 250,000 climate-related deaths from 2030 to 2050. Read more here.
Social Determinants
- If you’re lonely or socially isolated, you might have a higher risk of early death, according to a large new study. There have been many studies on the associations between social isolation, loneliness and the risk of dying early, but some results have been controversial or mixed, according to the paper published Monday in the journal Nature Human Behaviour. Read more here.
- The land of the free is suffering from a "self-inflicted" injustice when it comes to poverty, experts say, as the rich are getting richer while thousands living without sufficient means die every year in the United States, as a recent study shows. The issue, according to an exclusive poll conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies on behalf of Newsweek, worries a majority of Americans. Read more here…
Medicaid Redetermination
- More than 1 million people have been dropped from Medicaid in the past couple months as some states moved swiftly to halt health care coverage following the end of the coronavirus pandemic. Most got dropped for not filling out paperwork. Though the eligibility review is required by the federal government, President’s Joe Biden’s administration isn’t too pleased at how efficiently some other states are accomplishing the task. Read more here.
Bans on Gender-Affirming Care and LGBTQ Issues
- Political efforts to ban gender-affirming care for transgender people have escalated in the United States. Hundreds of bills have been introduced since January 2020, and Republican governors and attorneys general have pushed for investigations into hospitals and issued edicts to restrict medical care. Meanwhile, misinformation about what gender-affirming care is — and is not — has grown more rampant and has been increasingly weaponized. Transgender Americans feel like their health care is being used in a political tug-of-war as state lawmakers, members of Congress, super PACs and news outlets mischaracterize medical services that have existed for decades. So what is gender-affirming care, exactly? And why is it important? Read more here.
- A federal judge struck down Florida’s prohibition on Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming care, the second decision to upend restrictions put into place at the urging of Gov. Ron DeSantis. U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle on Wednesday ruled against the ban by using some of the same conclusions and language that he used in another recent decision where he determined three Florida transgender minors could receive “puberty blockers” and other types of gender-affirming care despite a state-enacted prohibition on such treatment for those under the age of 18. In both rulings, Hinkle has stated that “gender identity is real. The record makes this clear.” Read more here.
- Minors in Ohio would be prohibited from receiving gender-affirming care and transgender student-athletes would be banned from participating in girls’ and women’s sports under a multifaceted proposal that cleared the state’s Republican-dominated House on Wednesday. The measure folded together two contentious bills that could drastically change the way LGBTQ+ youth live in the state, and it has parents of transgender children scrambling to figure out how to care for them as the proposal heads to the GOP-led Senate. Read more here.
- Proposals to ban or to restrict access to gender-affirming health care for transgender youth advanced Wednesday in both chambers of North Carolina’s Republican-controlled General Assembly in the final weeks of the session. The House voted 66-47 along party lines for a bill prohibiting public health care facilities, such as public hospitals or University of North Carolina affiliates, from performing any surgical gender transition procedure on a minor, or providing them with puberty-blocking drugs or cross-sex hormones. It also prohibits using state funds to pay for gender-transition procedures starting Oct. 1 and removes access to care for trans youth who are already receiving that treatment at a state facility. Read more here.
- Democratic governors and state lawmakers across the country are mobilizing against a surge of Republican restrictions on transgender health care by establishing their states as sanctuaries for gender-affirming care. Earlier this month, Democratic Gov. Wes Moore signed an executive order making Maryland the 11th state, plus the District of Columbia, to declare itself a sanctuary. Last year, California became the first state to declare itself a sanctuary. It has since been joined by Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Vermont and Washington. Read more here.
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