The NBC News (8/7, Fox) reports that approximately 4.2 million “US adults admit they drink and drive at least sometimes,” according to survey results published Aug. 7 in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. This is most likely “an underestimate,” because “people might not confess to drinking and driving, they might not admit it to themselves, and the study didn’t cover teenage drivers under the age of 18.” Amy Jewett, MPH, of the CDC, and colleagues wrote, “Alcohol-impaired driving crashes account for approximately one third of all crash fatalities in the United States.”

Related Links:

— “More Than 4 Million Adults Admit They Drink and Drive,” Maggie Fox, NBC News, August 6, 2015.

According to the Washington Post (8/7, Deane), a study published in the journal Surgical Neurology International suggests that “people are developing dementia a decade before they were 20 years ago.” After comparing “21 Western countries between the years 1989 and 2010,” researchers “found that the disease is now being regularly diagnosed in people in their late 40s and that death rates are soaring.” The study authors theorize that environmental factors, such as air pollution and increased use of insecticides, may be the reason.

Related Links:

— “People are developing dementia earlier and dying of it more, a study shows,” Daniela Deane, Washington Post, August 6, 2015.

The New York Times (8/7, A20, Stewart, Subscription Publication) reports that as part of the $22 million NYC Safe mental health initiative announced yesterday by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, experts in the mental health field “will fan out to New York City’s homeless shelters, into the streets and to other places to treat mentally ill people who exhibit violent behavior.” In addition, city agencies, “including the Department of Homeless Services and the New York Police Department, will share information with one another about those people to make sure they are being treated, city officials said.” Monitoring the treatment received will be a team from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Related Links:

— “New York City Initiative Aims to Help Mentally Ill People Who Get Violent,” Nikita Stewart, New York Times, August 6, 2015.

The Chicago Tribune (8/6, Bowen) reports in a 1,700-word article that there are “many women who suffer depression and anxiety while pregnant.” According to the Tribune, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) “estimates one in seven women experience depression during pregnancy or within 12 months of delivery.” However, “fewer than 20 percent of women diagnosed during postpartum had self-reported symptoms, according to” ACOG. In a May report, ACOG “advised that women be gauged for depression at least once.”

Related Links:

— “Depression Doesn’t Always Wait Until the Baby Comes,” Bowen, Chicago Tribune, August 6, 2015.

The AP (8/6, Fram) reports that yesterday, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) “proposed a National Rifle Association-backed bill…that he said would make the federal background check system for gun buyers more effective and bolster programs for treating people with mental illness.” Under the proposed legislation, state and local government would be given “more flexibility to use federal funds to screen for prisoners’ mental problems and improve training for law enforcement officers and others on handling emergencies involving” people with mental illnesses. In addition, the measure “would let civil judges order outpatient treatment for people with mental problems short of committing them to institutions.”

National Journal (8/6, Owens, Subscription Publication) points out that currently, there are “several mental-health-reform measures vying for attention.” Sen. Cornyn’s measure “has joined a comprehensive reform bill from GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy and Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, and a narrower Senate bill from GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander and Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, as well as Republican Rep. Tim Murphy’s reform bill in the House.” According to National Journal, “It seems that mental-health reform is a uniting topic, one that might actually create momentum in a slow-moving Congress.”

Related Links:

— “LEADING GOP SENATOR OFFERS BILL ON GUNS, MENTAL HEALTH,” Alan Fram, Associated Press, August 5, 2015.

MedPage Today (8/5, Firth) reports that “cancer survivors showing few signs of depression are still at significant risk for suicide, researchers warned” at the World Congress of Psycho-Oncology. Christopher Recklitis, MD, MPH, “speaking last week at the” conference, “reported observing signs of suicidal ideation in two surveys of cancer survivors.”

Related Links:

— “,” Shannon Firth, MedPage Today, August 4, 2015.

TIME (8/5, Sifferlin) reports that a study published Aug. 4 in the Journal of the American Medical Association “suggests commonly used first-line treatments for PTSD in veterans may not work as well as medical experts once thought.” After reviewing “36 randomized control trials of psychotherapy treatments for veterans suffering from PTSD over a 35-year span,” researchers found that even though “up to 70% of the” PTSD patients receiving cognitive processing therapy or prolonged exposure therapy “experienced symptom improvements, around two-thirds of people receiving the treatments still met the criteria for a PTSD diagnosis after treatment.”

Related Links:

— “How Effective Are PTSD Treatments for Veterans?,” Alexandra Sifferlin, Time, August 4, 2015.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune (8/5, Alpert) reports that yesterday, Sens. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a physician, “joined together…to offer up legislation they hope will result in a substantial upgrade in mental health services.” The legislation proposed by the senators “would encourage states to break down walls between primary care and mental health care.” One of the bill’s provisions would “clarify that federal privacy laws shouldn’t stop mental health professionals from sharing with family members treatment steps and what Cassidy said are ‘important signs to be on the look out for’ following treatment.” Another would “set up an assistant secretary of mental health and substance abuse post at the Department of Health and Human Services.”

National Journal (8/5, Owens, Subscription Publication) explains that the Murphy-Cassidy legislation “works to integrate physical and mental-health care systems, establishes new grant programs for early intervention, improves mental-health services within Medicare and Medicaid, strengthens enforcement of mental-health parity, and establishes committees and roles to specifically work on mental-illness issues.”

Related Links:

— “Sens. Cassidy and Murphy disagree on gun control, but unify for better mental health treatment,” Bruce Alpert, New Orleans Times-Picayune, August 4, 2015.

On the front of its Science Times section, the New York Times (8/4, D1, Goode, Subscription Publication) reports in a 2,500-word story that studies conducted over the past 50 years have shown that isolation in those who are incarcerated “can worsen mental illness and produce symptoms even in prisoners who start out psychologically robust.” The Times profiles the work of social psychologist Craig Haney, PhD, whose interviews of prisoners at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison “offer the first systematic look at inmates isolated from normal human contact for much of their adult lives and the profound losses that such confinement appears to produce.” Prison mental health issue expert and psychiatrist Terry Kupers, MD, “found in interviews of former Pelican Bay inmates…that even years after their release, many still carried the psychological legacy of their confinement.”

Related Links:

— “Solitary Confinement: Punished for Life,” Erica Goode, New York Times, August 3, 2015.

The Kaiser Health News (8/4, Gold) reports that since passage of the “landmark” 2008 mental health parity law by Congress that banned “discrimination in the treatment” of people with mental illnesses, “many families and their advocates complain it stubbornly persists, largely because insurers are subverting the law in subtle ways and the government is not aggressively enforcing it.” For example, some health insurance companies “limit treatment through other strategies that are harder to track,” such as instituting “medical necessity” reviews, a process whereby “insurers decide whether a patient requires a certain treatment and at what frequency.” According to Kaiser Health News, since 2008, “the US government has not taken a single public enforcement action against an insurer or employer for violating the law.”

Related Links:

— “Advocates Say Mental Health ‘Parity’ Law Is Not Fulfilling Its Promise,” Jenny Gold, Kaiser Health News, August 3, 2015.