Psychiatric News (9/17) reports that last week, American Psychiatric Association President Altha Stewart, MD, spoke “at a session on mental health at the 48th legislative conference of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF), an organization aimed at advancing the global black community by developing leaders, informing policy, and educating the public.” Currently, “there are only about 2,000 black psychiatrists nationwide, Stewart pointed out.” She stated, “There are not enough black psychiatrists in America to serve all the black people who need mental health care.” Dr. Stewart also “called for all psychiatrists to become more culturally competent, and for all to encourage young blacks with an interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) to enter the mental health field.” She emphasized, “Medicine needs their voice. We need their presence.”

Related Links:

— “Mental Health Needs of Blacks Are Not Being Met, Says APA President , Psychiatric News, September 17, 2018.

Several outlets reported on the Senate’s passage of legislation to address the opioid epidemic. Colby Itkowitz writes in the Washington Post (9/17) that the Senate “overwhelmingly” passed a package of bills aimed at the nation’s opioid epidemic Monday by a 99 to 1 vote. The package includes 70 bills covering $8.4 billion in funding for programs across multiple agencies. The legislation requires the US Postal Service to screen packages from overseas, typically China, for synthetic opioids and provides greater access to treatment.

The Wall Street Journal (9/17, Andrews, Subscription Publication) reports Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) was the only senator to vote against the legislation. The package provides funding to the National Institutes of Health to research a nonaddictive painkiller. Another provision clarifies that the FDA has the authority to require prescriptions for opioids to be packaged in set amounts, such as three or seven days.

The AP (9/17, Fram) reports the package creates “new federal grants for treatment centers, training emergency workers and research on prevention methods.” The House passed its own package earlier this summer.

Related Links:

— “Senate passes sweeping opioids package, “Colby Itkowitz, The Washington Post, September 17, 2018.

The AP (9/17, Alonso-Zaldivar) reports “thousands of children in foster care may be getting powerful psychiatric drugs prescribed to them without basic safeguards,” according a report due Monday from the Department of Health and Human Services inspector general’s office that “found that about 1 in 3 foster kids from a sample of states were prescribed psychiatric drugs without treatment plans or follow-up, which are considered standard for sound medical care.” Ann Maxwell, an assistant inspector general with HHS’ inspector general’s office, said, “We are worried about the gap in compliance because it has an immediate, real-world impact on children’s lives.”

Related Links:

— “Watchdog slams safeguards for foster kids on psych drugs, “Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, AP, September 17, 2018.

USA Today (9/14) reported that according to the 2017 National Survey on Drug Use and Health released by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration on Friday, “far fewer people in the United States started using heroin last year, but the decline among young new 18- to 25-year-old heroin users was almost imperceptible” while methamphetamine and marijuana use rose for that group. “In 2015, SAMHSA estimated 8.5 percent of people in that age range misused prescription opioids; that dropped to just over 7 percent in 2017.”

The AP (9/14, Johnson) reported the number of new users of heroin decreased from 170,000 in 2016 to 81,000 in 2017, “a one-year drop that would need to be sustained for years to reduce the number of fatal overdoses, experts said.”

Kaiser Health News (9/14) reported the survey “found that from 2015 to 2017 the percentage of pregnant women who reported marijuana use more than doubled, to 7.1 percent,” often believing it is safer than the FDA-approved drugs for combat nausea and pain, though mounting evidence suggests marijuana can cause preterm birth and long-term neurological problems in babies.

Related Links:

— “Number of new heroin users drops dramatically, but meth, marijuana use up, survey says, “Jayne O’Donnell and Terry DeMio, USA Today, September 14, 2018.

HealthDay (9/13, Dallas) reports, “More than one in three first-year college students around the world struggle with a mental health disorder,” researchers concluded after analyzing “data collected on nearly 14,000 students from 19 colleges in eight countries – Australia, Belgium, Germany, Mexico, Northern Ireland, South Africa, Spain and the United States.” The findings were published online Sept. 13 in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology.

Meanwhile, Healio (9/13) reports, “Survey data from a large sample of U.S. college students revealed a high rate of multiple stress exposures among this population, which was strongly” associated with “a greater risk for suicide attempts and mental health diagnoses,” researchers concluded after studying “a sample of 67,308 U.S. undergraduate students across 108 institutions.” The findings were published online Sept. 6 in the journal Depression and Anxiety.

Related Links:

— “1 in 3 College Freshmen Faces Mental Health Woes, “Mary Elizabeth Dallas, HealthDay, September 13, 2018.

TODAY (9/12, Pawlowski) reports rising rates of alcohol use among women in the US is prompting concern about drinking habits, with a recent study indicating “rates of binge drinking increased by 17.5 percent among women between 2005 and 2012.” Aaron White, biological psychologist and Senior Scientific Adviser to the Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, said, “Alcohol use is increasing among women in the United States at a time when it’s decreasing among men. … There has been a real shift.” The piece says researchers speculate that with more women “delaying marriage and children, they’re extending their young adulthood – traditionally the risk period for alcohol problems – which can set a pattern of alcohol consumption patterns for years to come.”

Related Links:

— “Do moms need too much wine? Women’s drinking habits spark concern, “A. Pawlowski, TODAY, September 12, 2018.

HealthDay (9/12, Mozes) reports that after analyzing data on “nearly 200,000 Utah residents,” researchers found that patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) “may be more than twice as likely to develop” early Parkinson’s disease. The findings were published online Sept. 12 in Neuropsychopharmacology.

Related Links:

— “ADHD Tied to Raised Risk of Early Parkinson’s, “Alan Mozes, HealthDay, September 12, 2018.

Medscape (9/11, Brooks, Subscription Publication) reports, “Approximately 49 to 65 inpatients commit suicide each year in US hospitals,” researchers concluded after performing “a cross-sectional analysis of data from 27 states reporting to the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) for 2014-2015 and from hospitals reporting to the Joint Commission’s Sentinel Event (SE) database from 2010 to 2017.” The study authors estimated that “between 48.5 and 64.9 hospital inpatient suicides occur annually in the United States, with 31.0 to 51.7 of these events occurring during psychiatric hospitalization.” The findings were published online Sept. 3 in “the Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety to coincide with National Suicide Prevention Week, September 9 to 15.”

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

Healio (9/11, Demko) reports, “Women with gestational diabetes mellitus may be at elevated risk for postpartum depression symptoms,” researchers concluded. The findings of the 1,066-woman study were published online Aug. 15 in the Journal of Affective Disorders.

Related Links:

— “Link found between gestational diabetes, postpartum depression risk, “Savannah Demko, Healio, September 11, 2018.

NBC News (9/11, Fox) reports on its website that according to research published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, a review of medical records from 2006 to 2015 “showed that a physician gave no explanation at all for writing an opioid prescription in 29 percent of the cases.” The findings by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Rand Corp. “help support criticism by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and others that say inappropriate prescribing practices have helped drive the opioid crisis.”

The Boston Globe (9/10, Finucane) reports “inappropriate prescribing, bad recordkeeping, or a combination of both were possible reasons for the missing data, according to the researchers.” Study author Tisamarie Sherry said, “Whatever the reasons, lack of robust documentation undermines our efforts to understand physician prescribing patterns and curtails our ability to stem overprescribing.”

Related Links:

— “Doctors gave no reason for a third of opioid prescriptions, study finds, “Maggie Fox, NBC News, September 10, 2018.