MedPage Today (1/29, Walker) reports researchers found that counties with “higher long-term unemployment rates and a” shortage of mental health clinicians had “higher rates of neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS).” The findings were published in JAMA. Katy B. Kozhimannil, PhD, of the University of Minnesota, and Lindsay K. Admon, MD, of the University of Michigan, wrote in an accompanying editorial that the link between shortages of mental health clinicians and NAS was a “key finding.”
HealthDay (1/29, Preidt) reports the researchers examined “6.3 million births between 2009 and 2015 in 580 counties in Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, New York, Tennessee and Washington,” and found that “in counties with high, long-term unemployment, 20 of every 1,000 newborns were exposed to opioids” in utero, compared to only “7.8 per 1,000 births in counties with the lowest unemployment.”
Related Links:
— “Opioid Danger to Newborns Varies By Region, “Robert Preidt, Healthday, January 29, 2019