The AP (8/4, Johnson ) reports, “Schools across the U.S. have been introducing yoga, meditation and mindfulness exercises to help students manage stress and emotions” following 2023 recommendations from the CDC. Research shows that “school-based mindfulness programs can help” students struggling with isolation, “especially in low-income communities where students face high levels of stress or trauma.” Programs like Inner Explore, which is “used at Atlanta Public Schools and over 100 other districts across the country,” guide “students and teachers through five-to-10-minute sessions of breathing, meditating and reflecting several times a day.” Teachers and administrators “say they have noticed a difference in their students since” incorporating the practices, which have helped children build confidence and learn emotional regulation.

Related Links:

— “More US schools are taking breaks for meditation. Teachers say it helps students’ mental health,”Sharon Johnson, AP, August 4, 2024

CNN (8/2, Christensen ) reported exposure to wildfires “can increase the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, alcohol and substance use disorders, and sleep problems, as well as mental health problems that could last years.” A study published in PLOS Climate on Friday that focused on California residents “said about half of the 24,000 Californians researchers spoke with had been affected by a climate event like a wildfire or flood, and of those, nearly 23% reported that their mental health was harmed.” People in rural areas were also “more likely to report that a climate event has had a negative impact on their mental health, in addition to people who were White, college-educated or female.” Dr. Steven Sugden, a member of the American Psychiatric Association’s committee for disaster psychiatry, emphasized the detriment of repeated exposure to natural disasters, stating, “If people have lived through those experiences before, then with each subsequent year, there are just more triggers.”

Related Links:

— “Repeated wildfires put pressure on residents, making it difficult to recover peace of mind,”Jen Christensen, CNN, August 2, 2024

The Washington Post (8/4, Blakemore) reports, “People living with chronic pain are more likely than their peers without pain to need mental health treatment, yet less likely to get it, a new analysis suggests.” Using “data from the 2019 National Health Interview Survey,” researchers discovered that “43.2 percent of respondents with chronic pain had a mental health need compared with 17.4 percent of those not in pain.” Investigators also observed that “over 44 percent of those with chronic pain received mental health treatment, yet still had symptoms of unremitted depression or anxiety, unlike 71.5 percent of those without chronic pain.” The findings were published in PAIN.

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— “The Washington Post (requires login and subscription)

Healio (7/31, Buzby) reports, “Risk for psychiatric disorder or suicide attempt is particularly high in the first year following hospitalization for heart disease, and patient support is important to lower such risk, researchers” found. The “analysis included 63,923 patients hospitalized for the first time with CVD between 1997 and 2020 and 127,845 matched individuals without a CVD hospitalization.” The findings were published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Related Links:

— “Mental health ‘crucial’ after first-time hospitalization for heart disease,”Scott Buzby, Healio, July 31, 2024

Psychiatric News (7/31) reports, “In a statement issued [Wednesday], APA denounced the July 7 police shooting of Sonya Massey by former sheriff’s deputy Sean Grayson in Springfield, Illinois, calling it ‘a disturbing and horrifying tragedy that should never have happened.’” The association “said that when visiting the home of anyone reported to have mental illness or substance use disorders, law enforcement should be prepared to respond with care and empathy, not violence and harm.” APA urged “law enforcement organizations to ensure that they prepare their workforce with both training in dealing with mental health issues and anti-bias training,” saying “the injustice of Ms. Massey’s killing lays bare the ways in which racial inequities can play out in our communities.”

Related Links:

— “APA Denounces Police Killing of Sonya Massey, Psychiatric News, July 31, 2024

Healio (8/1, Herpen) reports, “Among men who played American football, researchers found that exposure to the sport at a younger age was strongly associated with worse cognitive performance and resilience, particularly in those who lived to at least 60 years.” Analyzing “data from the UNITE Brain Bank within the CTE Center at” Boston University, researchers “found that in those aged 60 years or older at the time of donation, strong associations existed between younger [age of first exposure to football] and worse performance on the [Cognitive Difficulties Scale], [Meta Cognition Index] and overall worse scores for all three composites.” The findings were presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference.

Related Links:

— “Younger exposure to football linked to worse cognitive outcomes in later life,”Robert Herpen, Healio, August 1, 2024

KFF Health News (8/1, Giles) reports, “Clinicians from various ethnic groups have recently begun to draw a direct line between colorism and poor health,” pointing to a 2023 KFF survey which “found that, among Black and Hispanic adults, those with self-described darker skin tones reported more experiences with discrimination in daily life compared with those who have lighter skin tones.” Due to the potential health implications of this data, “the health care system should pay more attention to colorism, said Regina James, a child and adolescent psychiatrist who heads the American Psychiatric Association’s Division of Diversity and Health Equity.” While “clinical approaches that incorporate cultural competence” are an important step, “therapists, doctors, and other clinicians from diverse backgrounds say that…more efforts are needed to diversify the pool of mental health practitioners and to collaborate between disciplines.”

Related Links:

— “‘I feel dismissed’: People experiencing colorism say health system fails them,”Chaseedaw Giles, KFF Health News, August 1, 2024

CBS News (7/30, Tin ) says, “Close to 1 in 3 adolescents in the U.S. received mental health treatment in 2023, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reported Tuesday, which works out to around 8.3 million young people between the ages of 12 and 17 getting counseling, medication or another treatment.” For adolescents, “the biggest increase from 2022 was in the number getting medication for mental health treatment,” with SAMHSA estimating “that 13.9% of those age 12 to 17 received such a prescription in 2023,” up from “12.8% the year before.” The findings were included in SAMHSA’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health for 2023.

The Hill (7/30, Nazzaro ) also reports.

Related Links:

— “Nearly a third of adolescents getting mental health treatment, federal survey finds,”Alexander Tin, CBS News, July 30, 2024

The Washington Post (7/30, Malhi ) reports, “The suicide rate for U.S. children 8 to 12 years old has steadily climbed in the past decade and a half, with a disproportionate rise among girls, data released Tuesday…shows.” The Post adds, “Between 2001 and 2022, 2,241 children ages 8 to 12 – known as preteens – died by suicide,” and “while suicide rates were decreasing until 2007, they increased by about 8 percent each year from 2008 to 2022.” The findings were published in JAMA Network Open.

Reuters (7/30, Sunny) reports researchers “examined U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) records on preteen suicide from 2001 to 2022” and discovered that “suicide was the 5th leading cause of death in girls between 2008 and 2022, moving up from being the 11th leading cause between 2001 and 2007.”

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— “The Washington Post (requires login and subscription)

CNN (7/30, Howard ) reports “research suggests that the majority of young people who have died by suicide did not have a documented mental health diagnosis in their medical history.” About “3 out of 5 young people who died by suicide between January 2010 and December 2021 had no previously diagnosed mental health condition, according to the study,” which “suggests that mental health problems might be going missed or undiagnosed, and thus untreated, in some young people.” The findings were published in JAMA Network Open.

HealthDay (7/30, Thompson ) reports researchers came to this conclusion after analyzing “data on more than 40,000 suicides by youth ages 10 to 24 between 2010 and 2021” that had been “gathered by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

Related Links:

— “Most young people who die by suicide in the US do not have previous mental health diagnoses, study suggests,”Jacqueline Howard, CNN, July 30, 2024