The New York Times (10/7, Victor) reports, “Over a 15-month period of the pandemic, more than 120,000 children in the United States had a parent or caregiver die from Covid-19, a loss that more severely affected racial minorities, according to a modeling study.” Researchers “estimated that for every four Covid-19 deaths between April 1, 2020, and June 30, 2021, one child lost a parent or caregiver.” Additionally, “22,007 lost a secondary caregiver, or a grandparent providing housing but not most basic needs, the study projected.” The findings were published in the journal Pediatrics on Thursday.

The Washington Post (10/7, Cha) reports, “Losing a parent or other primary caregiver is one of the most stressful things that can happen in a child’s life – putting them at risk of a trajectory of depression and post-traumatic stress, as well as physical manifestations of grief, such as heart problems.” The estimated “numbers take into account both official covid deaths and deaths from other causes, such as homicides and drug overdoses, beyond those expected in a typical year without the pandemic.” According to the Post, “The data reveals vast disparities by race and ethnicity – even more skewed toward an overrepresentation of minority communities than covid deaths.”

Among other sources covering the story is HealthDay (10/7, Preidt).

Related Links:

— “Over 120,000 American Children Have Lost a Parent or Caregiver to Covid-19, Study Says “Daniel Victor, The New York Times, October 7, 2021

HealthIT Security (10/6, McKeon) reports, “Physician burnout was a growing problem prior to the pandemic, but other health care professionals are reporting significant levels of burnout as well, according to” a Spok survey, which found more than 50% “of IT staff and contact center staff reported feeling a considerable level of burnout.” In addition, more than 60% “of clinical executives reported feeling ‘a great deal’ of burnout since the pandemic.” The article adds, “Health care professionals overwhelmingly agreed that the risk of clinician burnout is a public health crisis.”

Related Links:

— “Workers Report Burnout Due to Healthcare Cybersecurity Concerns ” Jill McKeon, HealthIT Security, October 6, 2021

Healio (10/6, Gramigna) reports, “Individuals with psychological distress before the COVID-19 pandemic had increased risk for experiencing disruptions related to healthcare and economics,” investigators concluded in a study that sought to “elucidate mental health inequalities in life disruptions among 59,482 participants of 12 U.K. longitudinal studies.” The study team collected data “prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic.” The study revealed that “the wider health and economic impacts of the pandemic have been disproportionately experienced by those with mental health difficulties, potentially leading to worsening longer term outcomes, even post-pandemic, for those already experiencing poor mental health.” The findings were published online Sept. 30 in the British Journal of Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Pre-pandemic distress levels predict risk for health care, economic disruptions “Joe Gramigna, Healio, October 6, 2021

Psychiatric News (10/6) reports, “People who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and have a substance use disorder (SUD) appear to be at higher risk for breakthrough infections than people without an SUD,” investigators concluded after analyzing “de-identified data from electronic health records for 30,183 fully vaccinated patients with history of SUD and 549,189 patients without SUD between December 2020 and August 2021 – a period that included the Delta variant outbreak.” The study revealed that “the risk of breakthrough infection for people with SUDs ranged from 6.8% for tobacco use disorder to 7.8% for cannabis use disorder,” while “the risk of breakthrough infections in vaccinated people without an SUD was 3.6%.” The findings were published online Oct. 5 in the journal World Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Patients With SUDs Have Higher Risk of Breakthrough COVID-19 Infection, Psychiatric News, October 6, 2021

Healio (10/5, Weldon) reports, “Teen girls who experienced sexual abuse were more likely than their peers to be cyberbullied,” and also appeared to log “higher usage of pornography and social media, which led to being sexually solicited online and engaging in more sexual activity two years later,” researchers concluded in an “observational study” that “assessed two years of URL activity and offline psychosocial factors of 460 consenting girls aged 12 to 16 years.” The findings were published online Sept. 27 in the journal Nature Human Behavior.

Related Links:

— “Teen girls who suffered sexual abuse may face more online victimization, exploitation “Rose Weldon, Healio, October 5, 2021

HealthDay (10/5, Murez) reports research indicates that children “who exercised more and used technology less during the pandemic had better mental health outcomes.” Investigators arrived at that conclusion in a study that “included more than 500 parents of children aged 6 to 11 and more than 500 parent-adolescent pairs of kids aged 11 to 17,” all of whom “were questioned between Oct. 22 and Nov. 2, 2020.” The findingswere published online Oct. 1 in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “As Kids Turned to Screens During Pandemic, Their Mental Health Suffered “Cara Murez, HealthDay, October 5, 2021

The New York Times (10/5, Mueller) reports, “The arrival of vaccines and declining Covid-19 cases in the first half of 2021 coincided with an easing of symptoms of anxiety and depression across the” US, but “symptoms remained much more common in June 2021, the end of the survey period, than before the pandemic, and could be on the rise again because of the summer surge in cases of the Delta variant, C.D.C. scientists said.” The findings were published online Oct. 5 in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The Hill (10/5, Coleman) reports, “The frequency of anxiety and depression symptoms among American adults amplified during the winter COVID-19 surge, according to a” CDC “study showing the pandemic’s impacts on the country’s mental health.” The study, “spanning from August 2020 to June 2021, found anxiety and depression frequency peaked between December 2020 and January 2021, as COVID-19 cases skyrocketed to new heights during the holiday season.” Despite a drop of 26.8% by June 2021, researchers also found that “the frequency of anxiety and depression still remained ‘substantially’ higher than compared to before the pandemic.”

Healio (10/5, Gramigna) reports investigators came to these conclusions after examining “data from adults aged 18 years or older via 19 biweekly surveys, with a total sample size of 1,526,154 participants.”

Depression Rates Rose Three-Fold Among US Adults During First Year Of Pandemic, Data Indicate. HealthDay (10/5, Preidt) reports, “Depression rates rose three-fold among U.S. adults during the first year of the COVID pandemic,” investigators concluded. In fact, “surveys of more than 6,500 adults found that about 33% have had more intense symptoms of depression this year, compared to 28% in the pandemic’s early months in spring of 2020 and 9% before it began.” The findings were published online Oct. 4 in The Lancet Regional Health.

Psychiatric News (10/5) reports the study revealed that people “most likely to report elevated depressive symptoms tended to have less income and a greater number of COVID-related stressors, including the death of someone close [due] to COVID-19, loss of employment, and/or challenges securing childcare.”

Related Links:

— “Depression and anxiety declined in the first half of 2021 but remained high, the C.D.C. reports “Benjamin Mueller, The New York Times, October 5, 2021

MedPage Today (10/4, Wu) reports on research finding that “childhood adversity – encompassing…abuse, neglect, and violence, among other hazards – was associated with over 430,000 deaths in the U.S. in 2019.” Based on “seven meta-analyses,” the researchers “found that deaths with the strongest ties to childhood adversity were from suicide and sexually transmitted infections.” It was also “implicated in various other unhealthy behaviors and disease markers, such as alcohol use, illicit drug use, and smoking.” The analyses “included 20,654,832 participants…from the last 10 years that measured the impact of childhood adversity on at least one cause of death or other health outcome.” The findings were published in JAMA Pediatrics.

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

The New York Times (10/4, Brody) focuses on the bidirectionality of anxiety, depression, and “serious physical disease,” including the “the ability to withstand or recover from one.” The Times adds, “What happens inside a person’s head can have damaging effects throughout the body, as well as the other way around” in that “an untreated mental illness can significantly increase the risk of becoming physically ill, and physical disorders may result in behaviors that make mental conditions worse.”

Related Links:

— “The Devastating Ways Depression and Anxiety Impact the Body “Jane E. Brody, The New York Times, October 4, 2021

The Washington Post (10/3, Kornfield) reports two counties in Ohio “are set to face off against four of the nation’s largest chain pharmacies in a federal” opioid litigation trial. The trial, scheduled to start today, “could serve as a litmus test for thousands of cities and counties looking to hold” drug companies accountable for allegedly fueling the U.S. opioid crisis.
The AP (10/2, Gillispie) reported that for the first time, pharmacy companies – in this case CVS, Walgreens, Giant Eagle, and Walmart – will go “to trial to defend themselves in the nation’s ongoing legal reckoning over the opioid crisis.” During the “bellwether federal trial,” attorneys for Ohio’s Lake and Trumbull counties “will try to convince a jury that the retail pharmacy companies played an outsized role in creating a public nuisance in the way they dispensed pain medication into their communities.” The AP explained that pharmacies operating in the counties allegedly dispensed so “many prescription [pain medications]…between 2012 and 2016 that the amount equaled 265 pills for every resident.” The trial “is expected to last around six weeks” and “could set the tone for similar lawsuits against retail pharmacy chains by government entities across the U.S.”

Related Links:

— “Pharmacies face 1st trial over role in opioid crisis “Mark Gillispie, AP, October 2, 2021