In “To Your Health,” the Washington Post (12/8, Sun) writes that a report by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) reveals that “only 23 states increased mental health spending in 2015, compared to 36 states in 2013 and 29 in 2014.” The remaining states “have been ‘treading water’ or going backwards by cutting funding for services, according to the report.”

The AP (12/8, Ronayne) points out that the NAMI report “shows New Hampshire is one of 11 states that has increased mental health funding every year since 2013.” That state’s increased mental health “spending is due in part to a legal settlement New Hampshire signed with the US Department of Justice in 2013 over inadequate community mental health services.” Currently, the New Hampshire “budget includes $23 million for the settlement over the next two years.

Related Links:

— “Three years after Sandy Hook, more states cut mental health funding,” Lena H. Sun, Washington Post, December 8, 2015.

In an opinion piece in the Arizona Republic (12/7), Gurjot K. Marwah, MD, president-elect of the Arizona Psychiatric Society, a district branch of the American Psychiatric Association, writes that “bipartisan” mental health reform legislation in the House and Senate, the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act (HR 2646) and the Mental Health Reform Act of 2015 (S.1945), would benefit Americans with mental illnesses and their families by “ensuring coordination of federal mental health resources, more strongly monitoring and enforcing the existing mental health parity law, establishing a national plan to boost the mental health workforce, and increasing research funding for the National Institute of Mental Health.”

If signed into law, “these provisions and others in the two bills will help patients and families struggling with serious mental illness, but who lack access to needed care.” Dr. Marwah called upon the political leadership in Congress to “seize this rare opportunity” to enact mental health system reform.

Related Links:

— “My Turn: Time for a new mental-health approach,” Gurjot K. Marwah, MD, AZ, Arizona Republic, December 7, 2015.

The Alaska Dispatch News (12/5, Demer) reported, “Alaska’s suicide rate of 23 for every 100,000 people in 2013 was the second highest” in the US, falling behind that of “Montana, according to data reported to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” with “young Alaska Native men” being “particularly vulnerable.” The Dispatch News explained that “a multitude of factors usually contribute to a decision to take one’s own life, not a single bad thing like a lost job or broken relationship, but also mental illness, a lack of jobs and opportunity, alcohol abuse and among Native people, cultural loss.”

Related Links:

— “In rural Alaska, a new approach to fighting suicide emerges,” Lisa Demer, Alaska Dispatch News, December 5, 2015.

In a nearly 1,200-word piece, STAT (12/5, Dolgin) reported that “a small but growing number of surgeons…are pushing to introduce formal screening tools in cosmetic surgery clinics” across the US. They argue that “psychiatric questionnaires offer a way both to protect patients from unwarranted medical treatment and to preemptively defend plastic surgeons from legal and physical attacks.” Estimates indicate that body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) may affect “up to 15 percent of patients in cosmetic surgery clinics.” While BDD “is best managed with antidepressants and talk therapy…around half of all people with BDD” instead seek “appearance-enhancing treatments.” After such treatments, “few are happy with the outcomes.”

Related Links:

— “Plastic surgeons, fearing violence, turn to psychiatry to screen patients,” Ellie Dolgin, STAT, December 4, 2015.

The Washington Times (12/7, Scarborough) reports that a new study conducted by psychologists from the National Center for Veterans Studies at the University of Utah concludes that the US military’s suicide rate “is more a generational trait than a wartime offshoot.” Researchers found that 18- to 24-year old veterans are more likely to be products of single-parent homes, have “more adverse childhood experiences,” and have “diminished social integration.”

Related Links:

— “U.S. military’s millennials at greatest risk for suicide,” Rowan Scarborough, Washington Times, December 6, 2015.