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.

Healio (1/3, Oldt) reports, “Approximately two-thirds of females with eating disorders recovered by age 22 years and [while recovery from] bulimia nervosa occurred earlier, recovery from anorexia nervosa continued over the long-term,” researchers found after conducting “clinical interviews with females with DSM-III-R or DSM-IV anorexia or bulimia at 9 years’ follow-up and 20 to 25 years’ follow-up,” then re-interviewing “77% of the original cohort…(n = 228).” The findings were published in the January issue of Child Abuse & Neglect.

Related Links:

— “Long-term recovery is common in eating disorders,” Eddy KT, et al., Healio, January 3, 2017.

HealthDay (1/2, Preidt) reports that research suggests “sleeping soon after a traumatic event can help some people cope.” In the small study, participants divided into two groups viewed a video containing “traumatic images.” Study author Birgit Kleim said, “Our results reveal that people who slept after the film had fewer and less distressing recurring emotional memories than those who” stayed awake. The findings were published in the December issue of Sleep.

Related Links:

— “Sleep May Help People Process Traumatic Events,” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, January 2, 2016.

MedPage Today (12/29, Firth) reports that the 21st Century Cures Act, “the nearly 1,000-page healthcare spending bill which President Obama signed in mid-December, also aims to reform the nation’s fragmented mental health system.” About 13 million Americans “have a serious mental illness or substance use disorder, according to the American Psychiatric Association (APA), which applauded the 21st Century Cures Act, calling its reforms to mental health a ‘huge step forward.’”

Related Links:

— “What Else is in the 21st Century Cures Act?,”Shannon Firth, MedPage Today, December 29, 2016.

USA Today (12/29, Brook) reports newly released statistics from the Pentagon show that suicide is “the leading killer of US troops deployed to the Middle East to fight Islamic State militants.” As of Dec. 27, 31 troops have died in Operation Inherent Resolve. Of those, 11 took their own lives, eight died in combat, seven died in accidents, and four died as a result of illness or injury. One other death is under investigation. Experts on military suicide say the reasons it is the leading cause of troop deaths “are complex and poorly understood,” but they “likely include mental illnesses that enlistees brought with them to boot camp, post-traumatic stress, multiple combat deployments and heightened anxiety in a military at war for 16 years.”

Related Links:

— “Suicide kills more U.S. troops than ISIL in Middle East,”Tom Vanden Brook, USA Today, December 29, 2016.

The New York Times Magazine (12/28, Chivers) has a 17,000-word profile of Marine Corps veteran Sam Siatta, who served in Afghanistan and, according to the VA, “suffered from depression, alcohol dependency and PTSD.” In 2014, he committed a home invasion in Normal, Illinois and was sentenced to prison. Writer C.J. Chivers talks with Siatta about his wartime experiences and how they led to his actions at home.

Related Links:

— “The Fighter,”C. J. Chivers, The New York Times Magazine, December 28, 2016.

The New York Times (12/28, A17, Carey, Subscription Publication) (12/29, A17, Carey) reports “the actress and author Carrie Fisher brought the subject of bipolar disorder [BD] into the popular culture with such humor and hard-boiled detail that her death on Tuesday triggered a wave of affection on social media and elsewhere, from both fans and fellow bipolar travelers.” Diagnosed with BD at age 24, Fisher often spoke “about her lifelong struggles with both addiction and bipolar disorder and her desire to erase the stigma of mental illness.” Partly due to Fisher’s “example, the language of bipolar and mental disorders has swept into the shared popular culture.” During Fisher’s lifetime, “the definition” of BD expanded, and “by the 2000s, doctors were diagnosing the condition in groups of people who had never been identified before, mostly young children.” In the article, the Times points out, “The American Psychiatric Association’s latest diagnostic manual discourages applying the label” of BD “to young children.”

Related Links:

— “Carrie Fisher Put Pen and Voice in Service of ‘Bipolar Pride’,”Benedict Carey, The New York Times, December 28, 2016.

Modern Healthcare (12/28, Johnson, Subscription Publication) reports the Department of Health and Human Services has selected eight states to participate in a two-year initiative aimed at integrating “behavioral health services within the primary-care setting.” The initiative’s goal “is to provide greater and faster access to care for those suffering from mental illness or substance use disorders.”

Healthcare IT News (12/28, Monegain) reports the eight states selected for the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic are: Minnesota, Missouri, New York, New Jersey, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon and Pennsylvania.

Related Links:

— “Eight states to boost behavioral healthcare through federal demonstration,” Steven Ross Johnson, Modern Healthcare, December 28, 2016.

In the Scientific American (12/28) “MIND Guest Blog,” Heather M. Snyder writes that “women make up nearly two-thirds of the more than five million Americans living with Alzheimer’s today.” New research indicates “there may be distinct biological and genetic factors shaping how the disease develops and progresses in women.” According to Snyder, “Understanding these differences will be of key importance in devising new, more effective strategies for treating, preventing and diagnosing Alzheimer’s.”

Related Links:

— “Alzheimer’s Falls More Heavily on Women Than on Men,”Heather M. Snyder, Scientific American, December 28, 2016.