On its front page, the New York Times (10/19, A1, Rosenberg, Southall, Subscription Publication) reports on the shooting Tuesday by a New York City police officer of 66-year-old Deborah Danner, a Bronx woman with schizophrenia, a “confrontation…condemned in swift and striking terms by Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner James P. O’Neill.”

Both de Blasio and O’Neill “said the officer had failed to follow the Police Department’s protocol for dealing with an emotionally disturbed person.” The mayor faulted the officer for not waiting for “more specialized officers from the department’s elite Emergency Service Unit to arrive.” De Blasio “also noted that Sergeant Barry was equipped with a stun gun that he could have used to try to subdue Ms. Danner.”

Even though New York City has started “providing its rank-and-file officers with more advanced training on dealing with people with mental illness,” only “about 4,400 of the” NYPD’s “roughly 36,000 officers” have received Crisis Intervention Training.

Related Links:

— “In Quick Response, de Blasio Calls Fatal Shooting of Mentally Ill Woman ‘Unacceptable’,” ELI ROSENBERG and ASHLEY SOUTHALL, New York Times, October 19, 2016.

Healio (10/20) reports that recently, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) “announced it will provide $21 million in funding over five years for a study on the development of mental disorders that develop following trauma.” In a press release, NIMH director Joshua A. Gordon, MD, PhD, said, “In the relatively short term, this project is expected to deliver tools for clinicians to make informed decisions about risk and follow-up care soon after trauma.”

Additionally, the “research resource to be created will fuel a new generation of analyses on the underlying causes of disorders, identify new intervention targets, and in turn give rise to mechanism-informed treatments based on individual needs.”

Related Links:

— “NIMH study will explore trauma-related mental illness,” Healio, October 20, 2016.

The Huffington Post (10/18, Almendrala) reports that researchers are developing a test to “predict how effective antidepressants will be.” Although “the test is still in early stages, a recent study…found that it was able to predict whether or not an antidepressant would restore a person’s symptoms to healthy levels with 81 percent accuracy.” The findings of the 102-patient study were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Related Links:

— “Will Antidepressants Work For You? There Will Soon Be A Test For That,” Anna Almendrala, The Huffington Post, October 18, 2016.

HCP Live (10/18) reports that “childhood adversity appears to be associated with bipolar disorder,” researchers concluded. The 19-study review “found that people with bipolar disorder were 2.63 times…more likely to have suffered emotional, physical, or sexual abuse as children than counterparts in the general population.” The findings were published online the British Journal of Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Bipolar Disorder Linked with Childhood Neglect and Abuse,” HCP Live, October 18, 2016.

In a 1,700-word article, The Atlantic (10/17, Goldberg) reports that “the majority of the nation’s youngest students don’t have access to mental-health resources at school.” Just “23 percent of prekindergarten programs have on-site or scheduled visits from psychiatrists or psychologists, according to the Child Mind Institute’s 2016 Children’s Mental Health Report.” Exacerbating the situation even further is “the current shortage of mental-health professionals, which is expected to continue.”

In fact, “the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration projects that 12,624 child and adolescent psychologists will be needed to meet demand by 2020, but a supply of only 8,312 is expected.” The article goes on to detail some new school-based programs designed to “make mental health a more robust part of the school day.”

Related Links:

— “The New Focus on Children’s Mental Health,” EMILY GOLDBERG, The Atlantic, October 17, 2016.