Politico (10/2, Chiappa ) reports, “Countries should consider regulating digital devices like smartphones in a similar way to tobacco products, to combat social media’s rising negative impact on young people’s mental health, the World Health Organization’s Natasha Azzopardi Muscat said.”

With growing “evidence that problematic gaming and social media behavior is on the rise among adolescents in Europe, countries should take inspiration from other areas of public health where legislation has helped address potentially damaging habits – such as tobacco laws, she said.” Measures such as “age limits, controlled prices and even no-go zones worked for regulating tobacco, so they could be taken as an example for how to curb damaging use of handheld devices like smartphones, Azzopardi Muscat, director of country health policies and systems at WHO Europe, told POLITICO.”

Related Links:

— “Control smartphones like tobacco, says leading WHO expert,” Claudia Chiappa, Politico, October 2, 2024

Healio (10/1, Welsh) says, “Mental health counseling is more effective at mitigating the risk for preterm birth compared with antidepressant treatment among pregnant women with depression, researchers reported.” Investigators found that “an increased number of mental health counseling visits from two to three was associated with a 21% greater reduction in preterm birth risk…and four or more visits was associated with a 43% greater reduction.” The findings were published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Related Links:

— “Mental health counseling more effective at reducing preterm birth vs. antidepressants,” Erin T. Walsh, MA, Healio, October 1, 2024

MedPage Today (9/30, DePeau-Wilson ) reports, “Exposure to conversion practices was associated with increases in several mental health symptoms for sexual and gender minority individuals, according to a cross-sectional study.”

In “the analysis of more than 4,000 people,” investigators found “that self-reported exposure to both gender identity and sexual orientation conversion practices was linked with greater symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (β 2.84, 95% CI 0.94-4.74) and suicidality (β 2.14, 95% CI 0.95-3.32) compared to those without any exposure.”

The findings were published in the Lancet Psychiatry. Study co-author Nguyen K. Tran, PhD, MPH, said these findings highlight “that these harmful practices continue to occur, not only within religious groups but also among mental health professionals, despite explicit opposition from multiple healthcare governing bodies such as the American Psychiatric Association.”

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

MedPage Today (9/30, George ) reports, “A new diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease or related dementia was more common after falls than after other traumatic injuries, an analysis of Medicare claims data showed.”

Investigators “assessed nearly 2.5 million older adults who had a traumatic injury that led to an emergency department…visit or inpatient admission.” Approximately half of those in the study were injured as a result of a fall.

The data indicated that “within 1 year, new dementia diagnoses were more common in people with falls than other injuries.” The researchers found, “after controlling for potential confounders and accounting for the competing risk of death, falling was tied to a 21% increased risk of a subsequent dementia diagnosis.” The findings were published in JAMA Network Open.

Psychiatric News (9/30) also covers the story.

Related Links:

— “Dementia Diagnosis More Common in Older Adults After Falls Than Other Injuries,” Psychiatric News, September 30, 2024

CNN (9/26, Christensen ) reports, “People in the United States who identify as transgender or nonbinary make up only a tiny fraction of the population, but they’ve been the targets of an outsized share of negative attention from lawmakers, a new study says – and those laws can have potentially deadly consequences.” The study “found that when anti-trans legislation becomes state law, suicide attempts among transgender and nonbinary young people rise, with increases of up to 72% among teens who live in states where those bills become law.” The findings were published in Nature Human Behavior.

Related Links:

— “Suicide attempts increased among transgender teens when states passed anti-trans laws, study says,”Jen Christensen, CNN, September 26, 2024