The AP (8/29, Thomas) reports that on Monday, Hillary Clinton unveiled “a comprehensive plan to address millions of Americans coping with mental illness, pointing to the need to fully integrate mental health services into the nation’s health care system.” The proposal seeks to ensure that Americans need “no longer separate mental health from physical health in terms of access, care and quality of treatment.” In addition, it aims “to enforce mental health parity laws and provide training to law enforcement officers to deal with people grappling with mental health problems while prioritizing treatment over jail for low-level offenders.”

Psychiatric News (8/29) reports the American Psychiatric Association applauded Clinton’s proposed comprehensive mental healthcare plan. APA president Maria A. Oquendo, MD, stated, “We welcome the attention Clinton is giving to mental health, an issue that affects Americans from all walks of life.” Dr. Oquendo added, “Our mental health system needs to be discussed this election season. Americans deserve to know how the candidates plan to address this important issue.”

Related Links:

— “APA Applauds Mental Health Plan Unveiled Today by Hillary Clinton,” Psychiatric News, August 29, 2016.

In “To Your Health” in the Washington Post (8/29), psychologist Juli Fraga, PsyD, writes that many people are unaware that “postpartum depression (PPD), the mental health disorder that affects up to 20 percent of new mothers…often begins during pregnancy.”

Research indicates that “women who develop depression before or during their pregnancies suffer from a more severe version of this mental-health concern and experience more intense feelings of sadness, along with sleep concerns and, in rare instances, paranoia.”

Recently, “the US Preventive Services Task Force recommended that all expectant and new mothers receive maternal mental-health screenings.”

Related Links:

— “Prenatal depression may be the most severe form of maternal depression,” Juli Fraga, Washington Post, August 29, 2016.

The CBS News (8/29, Marcus) website reports that “too often,” people “who have depression aren’t actually getting the treatment they need,” researchers found after analyzing “data from 46,417 adults who responded to a survey in 2012 and 2013.”

The survey results revealed that “more than eight percent screened positive for depression, yet less than a third of that group (28.7 percent) received any kind of treatment.” American Psychiatric Association president Maria Oquendo, MD, pointed out that a shortage of mental health professionals may interfere with a depressed person’s ability to get treatment. “In many communities, there aren’t” any mental healthcare professionals. It can also be difficult for people with depression to get motivated enough to find a mental healthcare professional.

Dr. Oquendo said, “The onset of depression is so insidious and often times it’s not identified until it’s serious. Then a lack of motivation and apathy interfere.”

Related Links:

— “Many with depression have something else in common,” MARY BROPHY MARCUS, CBS News, August 29, 2016.

The AP (8/29, Tanner) reports, “Continuing to play despite a concussion doubles recovery time for teen athletes and leads to worse short-term mental function than in those immediately removed from action,” researchers reported. The findings of the 69-teen study were published online in Pediatrics.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (8/29, Bloom) points out that even though “a study published in April used medical records to study the effect of delayed reporting and removal from activity on concussion recovery, this is the first study to use clinical data to study that issue.” In addition, the findings support “‘removal from play status’ as a predictor of protracted recoveries – ones that take at least 21 days.” Removal from play “was a stronger predictor of such lengthy recoveries than previously known factors such as sex and age, according to the research.”

Related Links:

— “Study: Removing athletes from play improves post-concussion recovery,” Elizabeth Bloom, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 29, 2016.

Reuters (8/26, Seaman) reported, “When deaths from substance abuse are counted as self-inflicted, then deaths from self-injury in the US are tied with deaths attributed to diabetes and outnumber those from flu and pneumonia or kidney disease,” researchers found after examining “data from the CDC on deaths occurring in the US between 1999 and 2014.” The researchers “write…that self-injury deaths in the U.S. are generally underestimated because suicides by poisoning and drug overdose are often misclassified as ‘accidents’ on death certificates.” The findings were published online Aug. 24 in JAMA Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Self-injury is a ‘major killer’ in U.S,” Andrew M. Seaman, Reuters, August 26, 2016.