Healio (7/20, Weldon) reported, “Youth suicidality unexpectedly declined in the United States during school closures for COVID-19,” investigators concluded after studying “national data on 73,123 emergency department visits and hospitalizations for suicidality among children aged 10 to 12 and adolescents aged 13 to 18 years who were commercially insured from Jan. 1, 2016, to Dec. 31, 2021.” The findings were published online July 19 in JAMA Network Open.

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— “Youth suicidality unexpectedly fell during school closures for COVID-19,”Rose Weldon, Healio , July 20, 2023

Healio (7/21, Young) reported, “New county-level estimates of Alzheimer’s prevalence…may help inform allocations of funding, staffing and other resources toward caring for patients,” according to findings presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference. The study, which used “data from the Chicago Health and Aging Project and” combined “it with the National Center for Health Statistics bridged-race population estimates” to evaluate “county-specific prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease throughout the U.S. for adults aged 65 years and older.” Additionally, the study revealed “specific demographic characteristics that may contribute to higher prevalence of Alzheimer’s in these counties.”

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— “New county-level Alzheimer’s estimates may help allocate resources,”Kate Young, Healio , July 21, 2023

Healthcare Finance News (7/21, Lagasse) reported the Department of Health and Human Services, “through its Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, is announcing awards in five grant programs devoted to combating multiple facets of substance misuse and the nation’s overdose epidemic.” The funding awards altogether total $47.8 million. They “are part of ongoing federal efforts in prevention, treatment, recovery support and harm reduction – the pillars of the HHS Overdose Prevention Strategy.”

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— “HHS distributes $47.8 million to expand access to opioid use disorder medications,”Jeff Lagasse, Healthcare Finance News, July 21, 2023

Psychiatric News (7/21) reported, “More than one-third of people who are grieving meet the DSM-5 criteria for prolonged grief disorder,” investigators concluded after surveying “1,137 bereaved adults using the Prolonged Grief-13-Revised scale (PG-13-R), which is used to identify patients who meet the DSM-5 criteria for prolonged grief disorder.” The findings were published online July 19 in the Journal of Affective Disorders.

Related Links:

— “More Than One-Third of Bereaved May Have Prolonged Grief Disorder, Psychiatric News, July 21, 2023

MedPage Today (7/20, Sullivan) reports, “Significant differences in dementia incidence emerged based on neighborhood deprivation,” investigators concluded in “a study of 1.6 million U.S. veterans.” The study revealed that “over a mean follow-up of 11 years, older veterans in the most socioeconomically disadvantaged areas were 22% more likely to develop dementia than those in the least disadvantaged neighborhoods.” The findings were presented in a poster at the annual Alzheimer’s Association International Conference and simultaneously published online in JAMA Neurology.

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

NBC News (7/19, Pandey) reported, “Hospitalizations and emergency” department (ED) “visits for suicide attempts and ideation rose nationally among children and teens from 2016 to 2021,” investigators concluded in a study that “focused on a set of more than 73,000” ED “visits and hospitalizations for suicidal ideation or suicide attempts among children and teens enrolled in commercial health insurance plans and in Medicare Advantage.” The findings were published online July 19 in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “Teens have increasingly wound up in the hospital for suicidal thoughts and attempts, study shows,”Maia Pandey, NBC News , July 19, 2023

Psychiatric News (7/20) reports, “Disruptions in healthcare services during the COVID-19 pandemic did not significantly reduce the ability of adults to remain in treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD),” investigators concluded in a study that “analyzed deidentified administrative insurance claims for adults aged 18 or older who were covered by commercial insurance or Medicare Advantage from March 2018 to February 2022.” The findings of the 13,113-adult study were published online July 18 in Psychiatric Services, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.

Related Links:

— “Study Suggests Few Disruptions in Treatment for OUD During the Pandemic, Psychiatric News, July 20, 2023

CNN (7/20, Kelly) reports, “Social media platforms, including TikTok and Instagram, have come under mounting scrutiny in recent years for their potential to lead younger users to harmful content and exacerbate what experts have called a national mental health crisis among” adolescents. However, “nearly two dozen parents…told CNN that they are grappling with a different but related issue: teens using social media to diagnose themselves with mental health conditions,” a trend that “has alarmed parents, therapists and school counselors, according to interviews with CNN.” Child psychiatrist Larry D. Mitnaul, MD, MPH, MS, stated, “Teens are coming into our office with already very strong opinions about their own self-diagnosis.”

Related Links:

— “Teens are using social media to diagnose themselves with ADHD, autism and more. Parents are alarmed,”Samantha Murphy Kelly, CNN Business, July 20, 2023

MedPage Today (7/18, DePeau-Wilson) reported, “While bipolar disorder is known to be associated with early mortality, deaths are more likely to be caused by external factors, such as suicide, than somatic factors, such as alcohol-related diseases,” investigators concluded in a study revealing that “in the cohort of people ages 15 to 64, those with bipolar disorder had six-fold higher mortality due to external causes…and two-fold higher mortality due to somatic causes,” when “compared with those without the disorder.”

HealthDay (7/19, Murez) reports the study authors “say this is due to a combination of external causes – such as suicide, accidents and violence – and physical health issues, with alcohol a big contributor.” The findings of the 47,018-patient study were published online May 1 in the journal BMJ Mental Health.

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

The Washington Post (7/19, Ovalle) reports, “The evolving overdose crisis in the United States is making another lethal turn, federal disease trackers reported” in the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics Data Brief No. 474. Investigators concluded that “increasingly, people dying from opioids are also using stimulants such as cocaine and methamphetamine.” In fact, the analysis “shows that between 2011 and 2021, the age-adjusted rate of overdose deaths involving opioids and cocaine nearly quintupled, far outpacing the rate of deaths involving only cocaine.”

ABC News (7/19, Kekatos) says that the report also “found the percentage of deaths involving cocaine and opioids varied by region,” with the Northeast having “the highest percentage at 84.5%” and the West having “the lowest at 73.4%.”

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— “The Washington Post (requires login and subscription)