USA Today (1/8, O’Donnell, DeMio) reports that as Republicans work to repeal the Affordable Care Act, “people with addiction and mental health disorders, their families and” some healthcare professionals “wonder how patients would maintain their sobriety – and psyches – without insurance coverage.” The article says those who have benefited the most from the ACA “are the ones most likely to suffer from poor mental health and addiction.” Almost “30% of those who got coverage through Medicaid expansion have a mental disorder, such as anxiety or schizophrenia, or an addiction to substances, such as opioids or alcohol, according to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.” By comparison, about “20% of the overall population – 68 million people…experienced a mental health or substance abuse disorder in the past year, the American Psychiatric Association says.”

Related Links:

— “Obamacare repeal jeopardizes mental health, addiction coverage,”Jayne O’Donnell, USA Today, January 8, 2017.

In “Health & Science,” the Washington Post (1/7, Morris) reported, “A survey of 2,000 US physicians” published in the November-December issue of General Hospital Psychiatry “found that roughly half believed they had met criteria for a mental health disorder in the past but had not sought treatment.” The physicians, who “listed a number of reasons they had shunned care, including worries that they’d be stigmatized and an inability to find the time,” also “voiced a troubling reason for avoiding treatment: medical licensing applications.”

Related Links:

— “Why doctors are leery about seeking mental health care for themselves,”Nathaniel P. Morris, The Washington Post, January 7, 2017.

In the Washington Post (1/6) “On Parenting” blog, author Katie Hurley, LCSW, a child and adolescent psychotherapist, wrote, “According to recent statistics from the National Institute of Mental Health,” one in five US children “has or has had a debilitating mental health disorder.” In other words, “in a classroom of 20 students…four of those children could be struggling at any given time with anxiety, depression, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or another issue.” Hurley went on to provide a list of “some things school faculty members can do to improve students’ daily mental health, even if there is no full-time therapist on staff.”

Related Links:

— “We need to provide better mental health treatment in schools. Here’s how to start,”Katie Hurley, The Washington Post, January 6, 2017.

The Wall Street Journal (1/6, Kamp, Subscription Publication) reported that new Federal data indicate opioid overdose fatalities rose 16 percent in 2015 from the previous year, totaling 33,091. Many local jurisdictions are still compiling data from last year, but many expect there was another increase in 2016.

The New York Times (1/6, Subscription Publication) reported that opioid overdose deaths “were nearly equal to the number of deaths from car crashes” in 2015, while “for the first time, deaths from heroin alone surpassed gun homicides.”

Related Links:

— “,”Jon Kamp, The Wall Street Journal, January 6, 2017.

Endocrine Today (1/5, Cox) reports, “Adults with diabetes – even those treated in a specialized diabetes clinic – often remain undiagnosed for cognitive disorders, including mild cognitive impairment and dementia,” researchers found after evaluating “30 adults with diabetes from the Mount Sinai Diabetes Center, as well as data from the Mount Sinai Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center on 189 adults without diabetes or cognitive impairment and 98 adults without diabetes and a diagnosis of amnestic mild cognitive impairment.” The findings were published online Dec. 22 in the Journal of Diabetes.

Related Links:

— “Cognitive disorders often missed in adults with diabetes, Healio, January 5, 2017.

The Los Angeles Times (1/4, Healy) reports that new research shows that “brain shrinkage” is “less pronounced” in older people whose diets “hew closely to the traditional diet of Mediterranean peoples,” which consists of “lots of fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts and olive oil, little red meat and poultry, and regular, moderate consumption of fish and red wine.” Findings from this study and other similar ones “have established that following a Mediterranean diet is effective at driving down heart attack, stroke and premature death risks, and improving the health conditions…that raise those risks,” but researchers “are less sure of the particulars of how the diet promotes better health.”

Related Links:

— “Less shrinkage: This is your aging brain on the Mediterranean diet,”Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times, January 4, 2017.

Reuters (1/4, Kelland) reports, “People who live near busy roads laden with heavy traffic face a higher risk of developing dementia than those living further away,” researchers found after analyzing “records of more than 6.5 million Ontario residents aged 20 to 85,” then mapping “residents’ proximity to major roadways using postal codes.”

CNN (1/4, Senthilingam) reports investigators “found that people living within 50 meters (164 feet) of” a major “road had a 7% greater risk of developing dementia.” The findings were published online in The Lancet.

According to MedPage Today (1/4, Bachert), the author of an accompanying editorial observed that “the study ‘opens up a crucial global health concern for millions of people.

Related Links:

— “Scientists link higher dementia risk to living near heavy traffic,”Kate Kelland, Reuters, January 4, 2017.

MedPage Today (1/3, Walker) reports, “Teens with a history of substance use, as well as substance use within their families and neighborhoods, had an increased risk of death by gun violence,” researchers found after identifying and analyzing “data from police and medical examiner’s reports in Philadelphia…from January 2010 to December 2012.”

The findings were published online Jan. 3 in JAMA Internal Medicine. The author of an accompanying editorial “said that these findings suggested violence prevention efforts should target substance use at multiple levels – the individual, the family, and the neighborhood.”

The authors of an invited commentary “argued that alcohol is a key modifiable factor driving homicides and recommended that healthcare providers use the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration tool, Screening, Brief Intervention, Referral and Treatment (SBIRT)” to identify and treat “treating substance use disorders in adolescents and young adults.”

Related Links:

— “Environment of Drug Use Ups Risk of Teen Gun Death,” Molly Walker, MedPage Today, January 3, 2017.

STAT (1/3, Thielking) reports investigators “at Harvard and Yale have” used a “mathematical model to predict potential victims of gun violence in Chicago.” After examining “Chicago police data from 138,163 individuals who were arrested between 2006 and 2014, nearly 10,000 of whom were also victims of gun violence,” researchers found that “in 63 percent of the shootings they studied…social contagion played a key role.” Their study was published online Jan. 3 in JAMA Internal Medicine.

HealthDay (1/3, Mozes) reports that “social networks” are “acting as a breeding ground for the spread of gun exposure and violence,” the study findings suggest. Study author Ben Green, PhD, a doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School, said, “Those at the highest risk of gun violence are the individuals with the most associates who have recently been shot.”

Related Links:

— “Gun violence spreads like an infectious disease, new research finds,” MEGAN THIELKING, STAT, January 3, 2017.

The Washington Post (1/3, Johnson) “Wonkblog” reports, “A new analysis” published Jan. 3 “in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that little has changed over the past three decades” when it comes to Federal funding of research into firearms as a “common cause of death and injury” in the US. Three decades ago, after “scouring a database of the research funded by the National Institutes of Health,” researchers at that time concluded that “a thorough review of research awards for 1983 failed to identify a single research project on the topic of firearm injuries.”

Now, the authors of the present study theorize that “if public health issues were funded based on their death toll, gun violence injuries would have been expected to receive about $1.4 billion in federal research funding over about a decade – compared with the $22 million that it actually got.” This time, investigators “didn’t limit their analysis to NIH; they used a database that contains projects funded by multiple federal agencies.”

Related Links:

— “The reasons we don’t study gun violence the same way we study infections,” Carolyn Y. Johnson, Washington Post, January 3, 2017.