Publications on Mental Health Topics

Teens and parents have wildly different views on kids’ support needs, by Erin Blakemore, The Washington Post, Jul 20 2024.

“Adolescents and teens are less than half as likely as their parents to say they always receive the emotional and social support they need, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report suggests, with less than 30 percent of young people in a survey reporting that they always have such support. The analysis, released last week, draws on data gathered by the National Health Interview Survey, which queries a representative sample of U.S. residents. Nearly 1,200 adolescents ages 12-17 and some 4,400 parents were interviewed between July 2021 and December 2022. When teens were asked how often they get the social and emotional support they need, 27.5 percent said “always,” 31 percent said “usually,” 12.5 percent said “rarely” and 7.4 percent said “never.” But 76.9 percent of parents said their teenage children always have the support they need. The disconnect might reflect survey differences, parents’ unwillingness to answer sensitive questions negatively for an interviewer or differing ideas of what social and emotional support means, the researchers write. Overall, boys were likelier to report higher levels of perceived support, and teens under 15 were more likely to say they always or usually got such support than older teens. Black and Hispanic teens were less likely than their White counterparts to say they had enough support. Sexual- or gender-minority teens also reported getting less support than their counterparts. Teens whose parents had a bachelor’s degree or higher and whose families had higher incomes were likelier to report they always or usually get enough support. So were teenagers who live in nonmetropolitan areas and the Northeast. The teens who said they had enough support were less likely to have health problems, depression and low sleep quality than their peers with less support, the researchers write. ”

Moving in Childhood Contributes to Depression, Study Finds, by Ellen Barry, The New York Times, Jul 17 2024.

“Researchers who conducted a large study of adults in Denmark, published on Wednesday in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, found something they had not expected: Adults who moved frequently in childhood have significantly more risk of suffering from depression than their counterparts who stayed put in a community. In fact, the risk of moving frequently in childhood was significantly greater than the risk of living in a poor neighborhood, said Clive Sabel, a professor at the University of Plymouth and the paper’s lead author. “Even if you came from the most income-deprived communities, not moving — being a ‘stayer’ — was protective for your health,” said Dr. Sabel, a geographer who studies the effect of environment on disease. “I’ll flip it around by saying, even if you come from a rich neighborhood, but you moved more than once, that your chances of depression were higher than if you hadn’t moved and come from the poorest quintile neighborhoods,” he added. The study, a collaboration by Aarhus University, the University of Manchester and the University of Plymouth, included all Danes born between 1982 and 2003, more than a million people. Of those, 35,098, or around 2.3 percent, received diagnoses of depression from a psychiatric hospital. ”

New Study Shows Which Antidepressants May Cause the Most Weight Gain, by Christina Caron, The New York Times, Jul 1 2024.

“Weight gain has long been a common side effect of antidepressants, but some of them are more likely to add pounds than others, according to a new study. The study, published on Monday in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, analyzed the electronic health records of more than 183,000 U.S. patients who were considered first-time antidepressant users and tracked their weight for 24 months. After six months, patients who took Lexapro, Paxil or Cymbalta had a higher risk, 10 to 15 percent, of gaining a clinically significant amount of weight, defined as at least 5 percent of their baseline weight, compared with users of Zoloft. Those taking Wellbutrin were less likely to experience this type of weight gain. The study included both the brand name and generic forms of each medication. ”

The Youngest Pandemic Children Are Now in School, and Struggling, by Claire Cain Miller and Sarah Mervosh, The New York Times, Jul 1 2024.

“The pandemic’s babies, toddlers and preschoolers are now school-age, and the impact on them is becoming increasingly clear: Many are showing signs of being academically and developmentally behind. Interviews with more than two dozen teachers, pediatricians and early childhood experts depicted a generation less likely to have age-appropriate skills — to be able to hold a pencil, communicate their needs, identify shapes and letters, manage their emotions or solve problems with peers. A variety of scientific evidence has also found that the pandemic seems to have affected some young children’s early development. Boys were more affected than girls, studies have found. ”

Study suggests connection between anxiety and Parkinson’s disease, by Erin Blakemore, The Washington Post, Jun 30 2024.

“People over 50 with anxiety may be up to twice as likely to develop Parkinson’s disease as their peers without anxiety, a new analysis suggests. The study, published in the British Journal of General Practice, looked at primary care data from the United Kingdom. Researchers compared a group of 109,435 people 50 and older who were diagnosed with a first episode of anxiety between 2008 and 2018 with a control group of 987,691 people without anxiety. Researchers said, of those in the study, 331 patients with an anxiety diagnosis developed Parkinson’s disease over the decade, and the average patient who developed the disease did so 4.9 years after their first anxiety diagnosis. After adjusting for age, lifestyle factors, mental illness and other factors, people with anxiety were still twice as likely to develop Parkinson’s disease than those without an anxiety diagnosis. Those who developed the disease were also likelier to be male and in higher socioeconomic groups. ”

Lie down, sit still, take a break: Your brain needs a rest, by Jamie Friedlander Serrano, The Washington Post, Jun 29 2024.

“Downtime is a necessary part of life. Science shows it helps us to be healthier, more focused, more productive and more creative. Yet, somehow, we often lose sight of this. “Downtime is important for our health and our body, but also for our minds,” says Elissa Epel, a professor in the psychiatry department at the School of Medicine at the University of California at San Francisco. Epel and others acknowledge that many of us feel as though we’re wasting time if we aren’t getting things done, but research points to the costs of always being “on” and the importance of giving our brains a break. Our brains aren’t built to handle constant activity. ”

Men’s brains change when they become dads, by Lindsey Bever, The Washington Post, Jun 14 2024.

“Studies have shown that when women become pregnant and after they give birth, physical changes occur in their brains that, some researchers suspect, may help prepare women for motherhood. And now research shows that new fathers go through similar changes. The brain changes that men experience may support “the ability to form a bond with the baby and connect sensitively to the baby because that’s important for our species’ survival,” said Darby Saxbe, a professor of psychology at the University of Southern California who has been studying structural brain changes. ”

A mystery illness stole their kids’ personalities. These moms fought for answers., by Richard Sima, The Washington Post, May 12 2024.

“Regression symptoms in patients with Down syndrome were identified as early as 1946, but the condition was often misdiagnosed as either early-onset Alzheimer’s disease or late-onset autism. Its effects can be devastating. When someone with Down syndrome regresses, the decline can be precipitous and dramatic, with patients losing function in days or weeks, including the ability to talk, move or take care of themselves. Some, like Sara, can enter a catatonic state or suffer from hallucination and depersonalization, leaving loved ones desperately searching for answers and help. It was only in 2022 that the condition was finally given an official name: Down syndrome regression disorder, or DSRD. Though its prevalence is difficult to measure, DSRD is believed to affect between 1 to 5 percent of people with Down syndrome. ”

The Loneliness Curve: New research suggests people tend to be lonelier in young adulthood and late life. But experts say it doesn’t have to be that way., by Christina Caron, The New York Times, May 6 2024.

“When Surgeon General Vivek Murthy went on a nationwide college tour last fall, he started to hear the same kind of question time and again: How are we supposed to connect with one another when nobody talks anymore? In an age when participation in community organizations, clubs and religious groups has declined, and more social interaction is happening online instead of in person, some young people are reporting levels of loneliness that, in past decades, were typically associated with older adults. It’s one of the many reasons loneliness has become a problem at both the beginning and end of our life span. In a study published last Tuesday in the journal Psychological Science, researchers found that loneliness follows a U-shaped curve: Starting from young adulthood, self-reported loneliness tends to decline as people approach midlife only to rise again after the age of 60, becoming especially pronounced by around age 80. ”

16,000 people with disabilities are in state-operated institutions. This is how experts say health care should change., by Michael Roppolo, CBS News, Apr 30 2024.

“More than 16,000 people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, or IDD, are housed in institutions in the U.S., reports the Residential Information Systems Project. While that's significantly lower than nearly 200,000 people in the 1960s, there is more work to be done, says disability rights activist Rebecca Cokley.  A 2011 review of 36 studies showed nearly 5,000 people with IDD found positive change after moving from large institutions to community living. Institutions also serve as a reminder that when we create structures that are separate, they are rarely equal, a concept with roots in racism and slavery, the Cokleys say.  A 2020 study published in the journal Rehabilitation Psychology looked at health care providers' attitudes towards people with disabilities. It found that while only a small segment explicitly preferred nondisabled people, a majority of providers implicitly favored people without disabilities.  Unfair treatment, in turn, means many patients with disabilities are delaying medical care, a 2022 survey reports — or not getting it at all.  ”

How to give kids autonomy? 'Anxious Generation' author says a license to roam helps, by Michaeleen Doucleff, NPR, Apr 14 2024.

“American kids are being walloped by a hurtful combination, says social psychologist Jonathan Haidt: too much screen time and too little autonomy. In his new book, The Anxious Generation, Haidt argues that these two key factors have combined to cause the mental health crisis now facing America's teenagers. A study by the health policy research organization KFF shows that 1 in 5 adolescents reports symptoms of anxiety and depression. Haidt's book offers a series of recommendations for flipping both of these factors around. ”

Why Are Older Americans Drinking So Much?, by Paula Span, The New York Times, Mar 30 2024.

“Public health officials are increasingly alarmed by older Americans’ drinking. The annual number of alcohol-related deaths from 2020 through 2021 exceeded 178,000, according to recently released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: more deaths than from all drug overdoses combined. An analysis by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism shows that people over 65 accounted for 38 percent of that total. From 1999 to 2020, the 237 percent increase in alcohol-related deaths among those over age 55 was higher than for any age group except 25- to 34-year-olds. Studies show a narrowing gender divide, too. “Women have been the drivers of change in this age group,” Dr. Humphreys said.  From 1997 to 2014, drinking rose an average of 0.7 percent a year for men over 60, while their binge drinking remained stable. Among older women, drinking climbed by 1.6 percent annually, with binge drinking up 3.7 percent.  “Contrary to stereotypes, upper-middle-class, educated people have higher rates of drinking,” Dr. Humphreys explained. In recent decades, as women grew more educated, they entered workplaces where drinking was normative; they also had more disposable income. “The women retiring now are more likely to drink than their mothers and grandmothers,” he said. ”

​Why School Absences Have ‘Exploded’ Almost Everywhere, by Sarah Mervosh and Francesca Paris, The New York Times, Mar 29 2024.

“In the four years since the pandemic closed schools, U.S. education has struggled to recover on a number of fronts, from learning loss, to enrollment, to student behavior. But perhaps no issue has been as stubborn and pervasive as a sharp increase in student absenteeism, a problem that cuts across demographics and has continued long after schools reopened. Nationally, an estimated 26 percent of public school students were considered chronically absent last school year, up from 15 percent before the pandemic, according to the most recent data, from 40 states and Washington, D.C., compiled by the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute. Chronic absence is typically defined as missing at least 10 percent of the school year, or about 18 days, for any reason. ”

Kids are overscheduled. They’re also lonely. We’ve got to stop pressuring them before it’s too late., by Kara Baskin, The Boston Globe, Mar 15 2024.

“Loneliness: It’s the scourge of our time. In 2023, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory on loneliness and isolation, calling it an epidemic: Lacking social connection increases risk of premature death by more than 60 percent. Young people are especially lonely. For this age group, time spent in person with friends has dwindled by nearly 70 percent over almost two decades, from roughly 150 minutes per day in 2003 to 40 minutes per day in 2020. But what can we actually do about it? How do we disentangle our kids from their earbuds? ”

Loneliness And Depression In Teens Linked To Lack Of Sleep And Early School Start Times, New Report Shows, by Mary Whitfill Roeloffs, Forbes, Mar 7 2024.

“Teenagers who wake up early for school, sleep less than eight hours per night or spend time on their electronic devices within an hour of going to bed are more likely to have experienced depression and loneliness, results of a new National Sleep Foundation survey out Thursday showed. ”