The AP (9/16, Tanner) reports a survey study of over 13,000 women age 18 to 44 indicates “the first sexual experience for 1 in 16 U.S. women was forced or coerced intercourse in their early teens.” The findings were published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Reuters (9/16, Rapaport) reports, “The average age at which women became sexually active when they were forced was 15.6 years, compared with 17.4 years for women who reported a voluntary first sexual experience.” Furthermore, “women’s first sexual encounters were with much older men when they were forced: 27 years old on average compared with 21 years with voluntary sexual initiation.”

HealthDay (9/16, Gordon) reports, “Women who were forced into their first sexual experience were twice as likely to report being in fair or poor health as women whose first sexual experience was voluntary.” Additionally, “women forced into sex their first time also were nearly twice as likely to have had an unwanted first pregnancy.” Meanwhile, “they were also far more likely to have pelvic inflammatory disease, endometriosis, and problems with ovulation or menstruation, the study found.”

Related Links:

— “Many US women say 1st sexual experience was forced in teens, “Lindsey Tanner, AP, September 16, 2019

Healio (9/16, Demko) reports, “Lifetime and childhood exposure to gender identity conversion efforts were linked to adverse mental health outcomes among transgender adults, including severe psychological distress, suicidal ideation and suicide attempts,” research indicated. The findings of the 27,715-participant study were published online Sept. 11 in JAMA Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Gender identity conversion linked to psychological distress, suicide attempts, “Savannah Demko, Healio, September 16, 2019

Psychiatric News (9/16) reports research indicated that “adolescents who were involved in a motor vehicle accident had slower development of their working memory than adolescents who were not involved in a crash.” Investigators arrived at this conclusion after analyzing “data from a longitudinal study of 118 youth in Philadelphia, who received regular assessments of working memory, sensation seeking, substance dependence, and more between the ages of 11 and 20,” then looking at data from “a follow-up survey on driving experience.” The findings were published Sept. 13 in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “Slower Development of Working Memory in Adolescents Associated With Motor Vehicle Crashes, Psychiatric News, September 16, 2019

STAT (9/13) carried an opinion piece by DJ Jaffe, executive director of Mental Illness Policy Org., who argues for greater utilization of assisted outpatient treatment. Jaffe wrote, “the most important and compassionate change the Trump administration and the federal government can make is to increase the number of psychiatric beds available to those who need them.” Furthermore, Jaffe advocates for eliminating Medicaid’s Institutes for Mental Disease exclusion, which “creates a financial incentive for states to deny hospital admission to people with serious mental illness, discharge them before they are ready, and close psychiatric hospital beds.” Jaffe adds that “extensive research shows that assisted outpatient treatment reduces homelessness, arrest, incarceration, and hospitalization by 70% or so and cuts costs to taxpayers by 50%,” and “is widely supported by advocates for the seriously mentally ill.” Assisted outpatient treatment “has been endorsed by the…American Psychiatric Association,” and other groups.

Related Links:

— “Wider use of assisted outpatient treatment could help individuals with mental illness, “DJ Jaffe, STAT, September 13, 2019

Psychiatric News (9/13) reported a study found “methamphetamine is involved in an increasing number of treatment admissions for heroin, especially among adolescents.” The findings, published in Addiction, involve “data from more than 3.5 million treatment admissions for heroin between 2008 and 2017.” The data show “in 2017, individuals aged 12 to 24 had the highest rates of admissions for heroin use involving methamphetamine of all the age groups examined: 27.8% of heroin treatment admissions for adolescents aged 12 to 17 years involved methamphetamine, and 17.4% of heroin treatment admissions for young adults aged 18 to 24 involved methamphetamine.” Heroin treatment admissions involving methamphetamine were higher for women than men, at 15.1 percent and 10.8 percent, respectively.

Related Links:

— “Methamphetamine Involved in Rising Number of Heroin Treatment Admissions, Psychiatric News, September 13, 2019

Reuters (9/12, Carroll) reports a new study suggests that “the sum total of taxes on alcohol doesn’t come close to paying the bills associated with excessive alcohol consumption in the U.S. The total damages from excess consumption add up to $2.05 per drink, while state and federal taxes bring in about $0.21 per drink, according to an analysis published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.”

Related Links:

— “Alcohol taxes not close to covering cost of drinking harms in the U.S., “Linda Carrol, Reuters, September 12, 2019

Psychiatry Advisor (9/12, Ranger) reports a study suggests “a pattern of increasing psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) during adolescence predicts greater risk of developing a mental disorder, particularly psychosis.” The study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry “discerned two clear-cut patterns: stable low levels of PLE frequency and a growing frequency of PLEs. In the latter group, 3.39% of patients transitioned to a mental disorder compared with 1.28% of the stable PLE group.” Meanwhile, “in individuals with increasingly frequent PLEs, the odds ratio (OR) was 2.7 for transition to any mental health disorder, while the OR for transition to psychosis was 22.14.”

Related Links:

— “Frequent Psychotic-Like Experiences in Youth Predict Future Psychiatric Illness, “Laurel Ranger, Psychiatry Advisor, September 12, 2019

HealthDay (9/12) reports a study indicates “autism rates among U.S. children are rising fastest among blacks and Hispanics.” The analysis showed “among children born between 2007 and 2013, autism rates at ages 3 to 5 rose 73% among Hispanics, 44% among blacks and 25% among whites.” The findings were published in Autism and Developmental Disorders.

Related Links:

— “U.S. Autism Rates Rising Fastest for Hispanics, Blacks, “Robert Preidt, HealthDay, September 12, 2019

HealthDay (9/11, Thompson) reports, “Teens who spend more time with social media are more likely to suffer from social withdrawal, anxiety or depression,” research indicated. In the nearly 6,600-adolescent study, 12- “to 15-year-olds who spent more than six hours a day on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media were nearly three times more likely to have these types of ‘internalizing’ mental health issues,” researchers found. The findings were published online in JAMA Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Lots of Time on Social Media Linked to Anxiety, Depression in Teens, “Dennis Thompson, HealthDay, September 11, 2019

Psychiatric News (9/11) reports, “In an editorial” published online Sept. 4 in JAMA Psychiatry, the authors of research “published last year showing that even relatively modest regular exercise has significant beneficial effects on an individual’s mental health said that including exercise in the treatment of mental illness could improve rates of recovery and reduce illness burden.” The editorialists “wrote that when applied to the entire population, exercise could have a significant effect on reducing the population burden of mental illness.”

Related Links:

— “Getting Patients to Exercise Could Reduce Population Burden of Mental Illness, Psychiatric News, September 11, 2019