CNN (6/15, McPhillips) reports, “In 2021, suicide and homicide rates for children and young adults ages 10 to 24 in the US were the highest they’ve been in decades, according to a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” The report found that “suicide and homicide were the second and third leading causes of death for this age group,” while “the homicide rate for this age group in 2021 was the highest it’s been since 1997, and the suicide rate was the highest on record, since 1968.”

Related Links:

— “Youth, young adults are dying from suicide and homicide at highest rates in decades, CDC report says,” Deidre McPhillips, CNN, June 15, 2023

Psychiatric News (6/13) reports, “Individuals exposed to a greater number of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) – for example, violence, abuse, and neglect early in life – may age more rapidly than those with fewer of these experiences early in life,” researchers concluded in a study that examined “data collected from more than 850 middle-aged adults at two time points.” The study revealed that “participants who reported four or more ACEs were likely to have molecular biomarkers that suggested they were older than their chronological ages.” The findings were published online June 12 in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “Adverse Childhood Experiences Found to Accelerate Aging,” Psychiatric News, June 13, 2023

CNN (6/13, Christensen) reports that “adults who identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual are more likely than those who identify as straight to have serious thoughts of suicide and mental health conditions including major depressive episodes, and they are more likely to misuse substances like alcohol or drugs, according to a new US government report.” According to CNN, “The data in the report, which focuses on LGB adults,” come “from 2021 and 2022.”

Related Links:

— “People who are gay, lesbian or bi have more mental health and substance use problems, survey finds,” Jen Christensen, CNN, June 13, 2023

Healio (6/13, VanDewater) reports, “From 2017 to 2021, people seeking treatment for opioid use disorder” (OUD) “increasingly tested positive for fentanyl, methamphetamine and cocaine at presentation,” but “over one year of methadone treatment for” OUD, “heroin and fentanyl positivity decreased,” investigators concluded in a study that analyzed 194,333 urine “specimens from 16,386 patients in 10 states.” The findings were published online May 9 in the journal Addiction.

Related Links:

— “Patients seeking opioid use treatment increasingly test positive for illicit drug co-use,” Kalie VanDewater, Healio, June 13, 2023

HealthDay (6/13, Mundell) reports, “About one in every seven American kids aged five to 17 underwent some form of mental health treatment in 2021, the latest year for which statistics are available,” according to CDC research that “pegs the percentage of kids who got mental health care in 2021 at 14.9%.” The data also revealed that “rates of mental health care were higher among older kids (aged 12 to 17), nearly 19% of whom received treatment over the prior year, than they were for children aged 5 to 11 (just over 11%).” The findings were published online June 13 in the CDC’s NCHS Data Brief 472.

Related Links:

— “Nearly 15% of School-Age Children in U.S. Have Received Mental Health Treatment,” Ernie Mundell, HealthDay, June 13, 2023

MedPage Today (6/12, Henderson) reports, “Parents of children in palliative care placed the highest value on the child’s quality of life (QoL), but with considerable individual-level variation and substantial change over time, researchers found.” Data from a cohort study of 680 parents of 603 patients show that “QoL garnered the highest mean importance score among the five goals of care assessed at initiation of care.” Next highest importance “to parents was pursuit of health, followed by pursuit of comfort, disease modification, and life extension.” The findings were published in JAMA Pediatrics.

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

Healio (6/12, VanDewater) reports, “From 2018 to 2021, psychiatric disorders were the primary reason for a small portion of physician-assisted suicides in the Netherlands and Belgium,” according to a poster presented at the American Psychiatric Association 2023 Annual Meeting. For the study, researchers “analyzed annual reports from the Regional Euthanasia Review Committees on Euthanasia from the Netherlands and the Reports to the Legislative Chamber by the Federal Control and Evaluation Committee for Euthanasia in Belgium from 2018 to 2021.” The study revealed that “psychiatric disorders accounted for 4% or less of physician-assisted suicides.”

Related Links:

— “Euthanasia for psychiatric reasons uncommon in Belgium, Netherlands,” Kalie VanDewater, Healio, June 12, 2023

MedPage Today (6/12, George) reports, “The shingles vaccine may be linked with a 20% lower dementia risk,” according to “an analysis of 300,000 health records.” The study revealed that “receiving the herpes zoster vaccine (Zostavax) reduced the probability of a new dementia diagnosis over seven years by 3.5 percentage points,” which “corresponded to a 19.9% relative reduction in dementia risk.” The findings were published online in a “preprint paper on medRxiv, which has not yet been peer reviewed.”

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

Healio (6/12, Welsh) reports, “Loneliness frequently plays an important mental health role for women who experience perinatal depression,” investigators concluded in the findings of a 27-study, 537-woman meta-analysis published online Feb. 28 in the journal BMC Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Loneliness contributes to perinatal depression,” Erin T. Welsh, MA, Healio, June 12, 2023

HealthDay (6/9, Gotkine) reported, “A school-based, trauma-informed group intervention is beneficial for alleviating trauma-related mental health harms among girls in high school,” researchers concluded after conducting “a randomized trial involving 3,749 Chicago public high school girls to examine whether a school-based group counseling program can mitigate trauma-related mental health harms.” The findings were published online June 7 in the journal Science Advances.

Related Links:

— “School-Based Group Intervention Effective for Mental Health in Teen Girls,” Elana Gotkine, Health Day, June 9, 2023