The AP (12/21, Aljas, Little) reported that there were “48 jail suicides since the 2017 launch of a sweeping Texas law aimed at reducing such deaths through better screening and monitoring.” The Sandra Bland Act “hasn’t made a dent in the number of suicides, and experts blame its failure to address one of the most significant factors: the lack of staff to watch troubled inmates.” The AP “and the University of Maryland’s Capital News Service compiled a database of more than 400 lawsuits in the last five years alleging mistreatment of inmates in U.S. prisons and jails” and found nearly “40 percent involved suicides in local jails – 135 deaths and 30 attempts,” while “all but eight involved allegations of neglect by the staff.”

Related Links:

— “Ambitious Texas law fails to make dent in jailhouse suicides, “Riin Aljas and Ryan E. Little, AP, December 21 2019

Psychiatric News (12/20) reported, “Alcohol use may raise the short-term risk of suicide in patients who receive outpatient mental health treatment,” researchers concluded after analyzing data “from the electronic health records of more than 44,000 adults who had outpatient visits to a mental health professional between January 2010 and June 2015.” The findings were published online Dec. 18 in the journal General Hospital Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Heavy Alcohol Use Associated With Higher Risk for Suicide, Psychiatric News, December 20, 2019

MD Magazine (12/20, Rosenfeld) reported, “A motivational interviewing intervention did not initially drive at-risk adolescents to seek mental health treatment following an emergency department (ED) visit,” research indicated. Specifically, “adolescent patients who presented at the ED for nonpsychiatric concerns but screened positive for suicide risk did not significantly benefit from the Suicidal Teens Accessing Treatment After an Emergency Department Visit (STAT-ED) intervention,” the study revealed. The findings of the 168-patient randomized trial were published online Dec. 20 in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “Intervention Did Not Improve Adolescents Seeking Mental Healthcare, “Samara Rosenfeld, MD Magazine, December 20, 2019

HealthDay (12/19, Thompson) reports researchers found that “obesity in middle age is associated with an increased risk of dementia later in life” for women. In the study published in Neurology, the researchers found that women “who were obese in their mid-50s had 21% greater risk of being diagnosed with dementia 15 or more years later, compared with women who had a healthy weight.”

Related Links:

— “Obesity in Middle Age Could Raise Odds for Alzheimer’s Later, “Dennis Thompson, HealthDay, December 19, 2019

NBC News (12/19, Charles) reports on its website that the “suicide rate for black youth is rising faster than for any other racial and ethnic group, now making it the second-leading cause of death for black children aged 10 to 19, according to a congressional report released this week.” The 38-page report “was conducted by a task force of the Congressional Black Caucus and found a sharp rise in the rate of suicides and attempts among black youth.” It also “found that suicide attempts rose 73 percent from 1991 to 2017 for black adolescents of both sexes, and injuries from attempted suicides rose 122 percent for black boys in the same time period.”

Related Links:

— “Suicide rate rising fast for black youth, report finds, “Nick Charles, NBC News, December 19, 2019