MedPage Today (4/20, D’Ambrosio) reports, “Gun-related deaths increased significantly among children and adolescents in 2020, becoming the leading cause of mortality among youth, researchers said.” According to the researchers, “the crude rate of firearm-related deaths among individuals ages 1 to 19 years increased by 13.5% from 2019 to 2020, surpassing motor vehicle-related deaths for the first time since 1999.” The findings published in The New England Journal of Medicine also revealed “drug overdoses and poisonings increased by 83.6% among children and adolescents, making it the third leading cause of death for this group.”

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

Healio (4/20, Marabito) reports, “Adults with a history of abuse contacted their general practitioner 1.5 times more often than those without a history of abuse,” researchers concluded in a survey study that analyzed responses from “11,140 patients…among whom 1,271 indicated a history of abuse.” The findings were published online April 5 in the European Journal of General Practice.

Related Links:

— “Adults with a history of abuse more likely to seek care from general practitioner “Maria Marabito, Healio, April 20, 2022

Healio (4/20, Herpen) reports, “Communities with greater social vulnerability did not have greater geographic access to medication for opioid use disorder [OUD],” researchers concluded in a “cross-sectional geospatial analysis of more than 198 million individuals between the ages 18 and 64 years, within 32,432 U.S. ZIP code tabulation areas.” The findings were published online April 19 in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “Communities with greater social vulnerability lack geographic access to opioid medication “Robert Herpen, Healio, April 20, 2022

Psychiatric News (4/20) reports, “Nearly a third of patients with first-episode psychosis (FEP) had recovered at 10-year follow-up based on a standard clinical definition of recovery,” researchers concluded in a study using “a standard clinical definition of recovery focusing on remission of psychotic symptoms and adequate functioning to evaluate 142 patients” who “were recruited for the Thematically Organized Psychosis” study, as well as 117 healthy controls. Investigators also found that “recovery rates were higher still among FEP patients who had been diagnosed with bipolar spectrum disorder, with 50% meeting the criteria for recovery.” The findings were published online April 14 in the journal Schizophrenia Bulletin.

Related Links:

— “Study Examines Patient Recovery 10 Years After First-Episode Psychosis, Psychiatric News, April 20, 2022

The New York Times (4/19, Mueller) reports, “Unvaccinated children from 5 to 11 years old were hospitalized with COVID at twice the rate of vaccinated children during the winter Omicron variant surge, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Tuesday.” Furthermore, the study, “based on data from hospitals serving about 10% of the U.S. population across 14 states, also offered some of the strongest evidence to date that racial disparities in childhood vaccination might be leaving Black children more exposed to severe illness from COVID.”
Reuters (4/19, Khandekar) reports the study found that “for every 100,000 unvaccinated children in the age group, 19.1 per were hospitalized with COVID-19 between mid-December and late February, compared with 9.2 per 100,000 vaccinated kids.”

Related Links:

— “Omicron Was More Severe for Unvaccinated Children in 5-to-11 Age Group, Study Shows ” Benjamin Mueller, The New York Times, April 19, 2022

Healio (4/19, Herpen) reports, “Incidence of suicide was higher among physicians than in the general population and affected female physicians significantly more than male,” investigators concluded in a study that “sought to compare the death rate due to suicide of physicians in Spain with the general population and to examine differences based on gender.” The study revealed that “rates of death by suicide were higher among physicians (1,295.7 per 100,000 deaths) than those in the general population (813.21 per 100,000).” The findingswere published in the April issue of the journal Psychiatry

Related Links:

— “Suicide higher among physicians than general population “Robert Herpen, Healio, April 19, 2022

Psychiatric News (4/19) reports, “Older adults who exhibit significant changes in blood pressure over a year may have a higher risk of depressive symptoms than those whose blood pressure remains consistent,” researchers concluded in a study that “analyzed data from 505 older adults aged 55 to 91 who participated in the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative.” The findings were published online April 2 ahead of print in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Blood Pressure Variability Linked With Depressive Symptoms in Older Adults, Psychiatric News, April 19, 2022

Behind a paywall, Bloomberg Law (4/19, Lopez, Subscription Publication) reports, “The HHS is pumping out $105 million in grant funding for states and territories transitioning to a three-digit national suicide hotline in an effort to beef up staffing ahead of the targeted summer rollout.” The new 988 “dialing code is slated to replace the current 10-digit number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline in July.”

Related Links:

— “Suicide Call Centers to Get $105 Million Ahead of New Hotline “Ian Lopez, Bloomberg Law , April 19, 2022

HealthDay (4/18, Norton) reports research indicates that “in school districts with greater segregation, Black students tended to have more behavioral issues and were more likely to drink alcohol, versus their peers in more integrated districts.” Investigators arrived at this conclusion after examining “data on more than 1,200 Black children and teenagers in school districts that, in 1991, were still under court-ordered desegregation.” The youngsters “lived in those districts between 1991 and 2014, allowing researchers to examine the effects of a ‘natural experiment,’ in which school district segregation increased over time.” The findings were published online April 18 in the journal Pediatrics.

Related Links:

— “School Segregation Tied to Problem Drinking Among Black Youth “Amy Norton, HealthDay, April 18, 2022

HealthDay (4/18, Mann) reports, “People with substance abuse disorders [SUD], depression and other mental health conditions may be at higher risk for COVID-19 – even when they are fully vaccinated,” researchers concluded after examining “records of more than 263,000 patients of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (average age: 66).”

Healio (4/18) reports the study found that “135,481 (51.4%) of participants presented with at least one psychiatric disorder diagnosis, with 39,109 (14.8%) developing a breakthrough infection,” with “most specific psychiatric disorder diagnoses…associated with an increased incidence of breakthrough infection.” The findings were published online April 14 in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “Mental Health Issues Linked to Higher Risk of Breakthrough COVID Infections ” Denise Man, HealthDay , April 18, 2022