The Washington Post (11/17, Bernstein) says that on Thursday, US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy unveiled a landmark report which “places drug and alcohol addiction alongside smoking, AIDS and other public health crises of the past half-century, calling the current epidemic ‘a moral test for America.’”

USA Today (11/17, Hafner) says the report, called “Facing Addiction in America: The Surgeon General’s Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health,” found that “one in seven Americans,” or nearly 21 million people, will face substance addiction, but only about “10% of those now addicted receive treatment.” Data also show one person “dies every 19 minutes from opioid or heroin overdose alone.”

On its website, ABC News (11/17, Mohney) says that at present, “the number of people with a substance use disorder exceeds the number of people diagnosed with cancer – any kind of cancer, according to the report.” In addition, while data show “32,744 people died from car accidents in 2014, the report found that approximately 50,000 people died from either an opioid, alcohol or other drug overdose that year.”

Related Links:

— “Landmark report by Surgeon General calls drug crisis ‘a moral test for America’,”Lenny Bernstein, The Washington Post, November 17, 2016.

According to HCP Live (11/17, Smith), an “analysis of data” from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey “has identified a number of factors that predict depression in women with diabetes.” The findings of the 946-participant study reveal that “being less than 65 years old, having failed to complete high school, having self-reported poor health, being inactive due to poor health and suffering pain that interfered with usual activities” were all factors “significantly associated with an even greater risk of depression.” The findings were published online November 9 in the Diabetes Educator.

Related Links:

— “Age, Education, Health Status Predict Depression Risk in Women with Diabetes,”Andrew Smith, MD Magazine, November 17, 2016.

The New York Times (11/16, Reynolds, Subscription Publication) reports, “Exercise may be an effective treatment for depression and might even help prevent us from becoming depressed in the first place,” the findings of three studies suggest. The three “studies pool outcomes from past research involving more than a million men and women and, taken together, strongly suggest that regular exercise alters our bodies and brains in ways that make us resistant to despair.” The studies can be seen here, here, and here.

Related Links:

— “How Exercise Might Keep Depression at Bay,”Gretchen Reynolds, The New York Times, November 16, 2016.

Reuters (11/15, Rapaport) reports that research suggests “women with a history of depression may have lower survival odds with breast cancer than patients without past mental health problems.” The study included approximately “45,000 women with early-stage breast malignancies.” Investigators found that “13 percent of patients previously treated with antidepressants died within five years of their cancer diagnosis, compared with 11 percent of women who hadn’t ever taken medication for depression.” The findings were published online in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Related Links:

— “Past depression tied to worse breast cancer survival odds,”Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, November 15, 2016.

HealthDay (11/15, Reinberg) reported that “the rate of diagnoses for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder” (AD/HD) “among US preschoolers has leveled off,” and the “prescribing rate of stimulant medications for these young patients has also stayed steady, a promising trend that researchers credit to treatment guidelines that were introduced” five years ago by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Those guidelines “called for a standardized approach to diagnosis, and recommended behavior therapy,” not medications, “as the first-line therapy for preschoolers.”

Medscape (11/15, Phillips) reports some “21, 558 visits from 143,881 children at 63 primary care practices” were included in the study, the findings of which were published online Nov. 15 in Pediatrics. The author of an accompanying editorialobserved, “This approach ‘is an innovative process that can provide more rigorous information about moving evidence into practice.’

Related Links:

— “Guidelines May Have Helped Curb ADHD Diagnoses in Preschoolers,” Steven Reinberg, HealthDay, November 15, 2016.

Reuters (11/14, Rapaport) reports a study published in Pediatrics found that since 1988, “the proportion of middle-income mothers who think physical punishment is appropriate has dropped from 46 percent to 21 percent.” During the same time period, the “share of mothers endorsing time-out surged from 41 percent to 81 percent.” lead study author Rebecca Ryan, a psychology researcher at Georgetown University, explained, “Support for corporal punishment has been falling at least since the 1990s, in part due to social science research that suggests spanking is linked to negative outcomes for children like delinquency, antisocial behavior, psychological problems, and alcohol and drug abuse.” She added that there is “little evidence” to support that “spanking or other forms of physical discipline are effective in the long term at reducing unwanted child behaviors or encouraging children to internalize – to really believe in – parents’ rules.”

Related Links:

— “Fewer U.S. parents say they spank their kids,”Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, November 14, 2016.

Kaiser Health News (11/14, Luthra) reports on community paramedics who are trained to help “psychiatric patients in need of care avoid winding up in the emergency room, where they can get ‘boarded’ for days, until they are released or a bed frees up at an inpatient facility.” After being dispatched to a scene with a patient with a potential mental health crisis, paramedics talk to the patient about “what, precisely, the issue is, asking also about issues like a patient’s mental health history, drug use and insurance status.” The information is used to determine “the next steps for the patient — maybe it is a hospital or a psych facility, or maybe it is outpatient care.” The pilot program of specialized paramedics was launched in Modesto a year ago, and “similar projects are also underway in North Carolina, Minnesota, Texas, Colorado and Georgia.”

Related Links:

— “Community Paramedics Work To Link Patients With Mental Health Care,”Shefali Luthra, Kaiser Health News, November 14, 2016.

Reuters (11/14, Rapaport) reports a recent study published online Nov. 14 in the journal Pediatrics suggests the number of US teenagers and young adults with untreated depression is increasing. The study found the prevalence of depression in youth ages 12 to 17 increased from 8.7 percent in 2005 to 11.3 percent in 2014. The prevalence of depression among adults aged 18 to 25 increased from 8.8 percent to 9.6 percent during the time span. Yet the study also found “there hasn’t been much change in the proportion of teens and young adults seeking mental health treatment.”

CNN (11/14, Howard) reports Dr. Mark Olfson, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center and a co-author of the study, said, “The new study highlights that most adolescents with depression do not receive treatment for their symptoms and underscores the need for increased attention to this condition.” Using data from the National Surveys on Drug Use and Health, researchers “discovered that the prevalence of major depressive episodes over a 12-month period increased among girls from about 13% in 2005 to about 17% in 2014.” Comparatively, depression in boys increased from about 4 percent in 2005 to 6 percent in 2014. Cyberbullying and interpersonal stress are cited as reasons why girls are at a greater risk for depression.

HealthDay (11/14, Mozes) reports that in an editorial accompanying the study, Dr. Anne Glowinski, director of child and adolescent psychiatry education and training at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, wrote, “There are many stressors which impact our youth….These stressors are not limited to social media and/or cyberbullying.” These may include economic factors, anxiety about the future, neighborhood violence, and, “yes, one of those things could be social media or even something not on the radar, like an increase in sleep deprivation related to excessive Internet use,” according to Glowinski.

Related Links:

— “Depression becoming more common among U.S. teens,”Lisa Rapaport, Reuters, November 14, 2016.

A more than 5,000-word New York Times (11/13, A1, Fink, Subscription Publication) analysis examines mental healthcare for detainees at Guantánamo Bay, saying that the “United States defends the quality of mental health care” at the prison as “humane and appropriate,” while “Detainees, human rights groups and doctors consulting for defense teams offer more critical assessments, describing it as negligent or ineffective in many cases.” The article highlights Lt. Cmdr. Shay Rosecrans tenure at Guantánamo, a Navy officer who “led one of the mental health teams” at the prison “over the past 15 years.” The Times notes psychiatrists and psychologists assigned to the prison “received little training for the assignment” and often reported feeling “unprepared to tend to men they were told were ‘the worst of the worst.’”

Related Links:

— “Where Even Nightmares Are Classified:
Psychiatric Care at Guantánamo,”Sheri Fink, The New York Times, November 13, 2016.

In a nearly 2,000-word piece titled “How Can I Afford Mental Health Care?,” the New York Magazine (11/11, Cowles) quoted Harsh Trivedi, MD, chair of the American Psychiatric Association’s Council on Healthcare Systems and Financing, who said, “Of all Americans who are clinically depressed and need help, less than half of them are diagnosed, let alone get any kind of help for it.” Dr. Trivedi added, “Of those who do get diagnosed with clinical depression, only about 30 percent get sufficient treatment to return to their normal functioning,” a “low percentage” that “has a lot to do with lack of access to care and not being able to use your health benefits to cover it.”

Related Links:

— “How Can I Afford Mental Health Care?,”Charlotte Cowles, The New York Magazine, November 11, 2016.