The Hill (3/16, Choi) reported, “Federal actions during the pandemic led to uninsured rates falling to record lows, especially among Black and Hispanic people, but a new report released by the Commonwealth Fund suggests these improvements are vulnerable to being lost once the COVID-19 public health emergency officially ends in less than two months.”

Related Links:

— “Coverage gains for Black and Hispanic people during pandemic could be lost with end of public health emergency “Joseph Choi, The Hill , March 16, 2023

Psychiatric News (3/17) reported, “One in five deaths by suicide is related to problems with current or former intimate partners such as divorce, separation, romantic breakups, arguments, jealousy, conflicts, and intimate partner violence,” CDC investigators concluded after analyzing “data from the National Violent Death Reporting System for 402,391 adults who died by suicide between 2003 and 2020.” The findingswere published online March 15 ahead of print in American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Related Links:

— “1 in 5 Deaths by Suicide Related to Intimate Partner Problems, Psychiatric News , March 17, 2023

Healio (3/17, VanDeWater) reported, “Self- and reflected appraisals differed over time between people with depression and people with euthymic mood,” which “indicate people’s alignment of self-perception and others’ perception of them.” The study, which “recruited 252 adults with either depression (n = 76) or euthymic mood (n = 176),” revealed that “temporal self-appraisals and reflected appraisals were not similar in people with depression, but were similar in people with euthymic mood.” The findings were published online ahead of print in the April issue of the Journal of Affective Disorders.

Related Links:

— “Temporal self-, reflected appraisal differs between people with depression, euthymic mood “Kalie VanDewater, Healio, March 17, 2023

Healio (3/16, VanDewater) reports, “Participation in an outreach program following a nonfatal opioid overdose was associated with lower risk for later overdose death, according to” study data. Researchers “evaluated the rate of opioid overdose deaths per quarter from 2013 to June 30, 2019, in 93 Massachusetts municipalities that had at least 30 opioid-related emergency medical services responses in 2015,” and “there were 58 municipalities with outreach programs by the second quarter of 2019.” The findings were published online March 15 in JAMA Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Outreach program after opioid overdose decreases later overdose death “Kalie VanDewater, Healio, March 16, 2023

Psychiatric News (3/16) reports, “Patients who enrolled in a trial of medication treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) who did not start or complete their assigned medication were at greater risk of experiencing an overdose than those who took their medication, according to a study published in The American Journal of Psychiatry,” a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.

Related Links:

— “Certain Patients With OUD Remain at Risk of Overdose After Entering Treatment, Psychiatric News , March 16, 2023

HCPlive (3/16, Walter) reports “new research from Scandinavia” suggests “pregnant women treated with antidepressants do benefit more from the continued use of the treatment.” In their “cohort study, the investigators” looked at “nationwide registers in Denmark and Norway involving 41,475 live-born singleton pregnancies in Denmark between 1997-2016 and 16,459 live-born singleton pregnancies in Norway between 2009-2018 for women who filled at least 1 antidepressant prescription within 6 months prior to pregnancy.” Investigators “obtained data on antidepressant prescription fills from the prescription registers and modeled antidepressant treatment during pregnancy using the k-means longitudinal method.” The findings were published online March 8 in JAMA Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Pregnant Women With Severe Mental Illness Benefit From Continued Antidepressant Use “Kenny Walter, HCPlive, March 16, 2023

The AP (3/15, Seitz, Miller) reports that on Wednesday, President Biden “said his administration was focused ‘intensely’ on lowering health care costs.” Speaking in Las Vegas, Biden discussed how the Administration is rolling out provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act “that cap the price of insulin, make most vaccines free and allow the federal government to negotiate deals on a handful of pharmaceutical drugs for Medicare enrollees.”

Related Links:

— “Biden says he’s focused ‘intensely’ on lowering drug costs “Amanda Seitz and Zeke Miller, AP , March 15, 2023

Psychiatric News (3/15) reports, “Individuals with gender dysphoria who lived in California were significantly more likely to undergo gender-affirming surgery following the 2013 implementation of a state law prohibiting insurance discrimination against gender-affirming care compared with those living in Arizona and Washington, where no such law exists,” according to new research examining 25,252 transgender and gender-diverse patients in California, Washington, and Arizona. The findings were published online March 14 in JAMA.

Related Links:

— “California Insurance Law Linked to Increase in Gender-Affirming Surgery, Psychiatric News, March 15, 2023

Healio (3/14, Burba) reports, “Patients diagnosed with COVID-19 during the first 3 months of the pandemic had a twofold higher risk for developing alcohol use disorder, likely driven by anxiety and fear surrounding the pandemic, according to new research.” The findingswere published online in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “New-onset alcohol use disorder spiked in first 3 months of COVID-19 pandemic “Kate Burba, Healio, March 14, 2023

Psychiatric News (3/14) provides coverage of new research comprising 318 women highlighting “some of the impact that worries about COVID-19 may have had on the mental health of women and their offspring.” Researchers observed that “COVID-19-related stress was significantly associated with maternal postpartum distress, depression, and GAD [general anxiety disorder] as well as infant negative affectivity, even when controlling for COVID-19 risk reported during the pandemic.” The findings were published online March 14 in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “COVID-19 Stress During Pregnancy Associated With Worse Postpartum Outcomes, Psychiatric News, March 14, 2023