HealthDay (12/5, Mundell) reports “suicide rates for Americans under the age of 18 are rising at unprecedented rates, and a new report points to a likely culprit: The ongoing epidemic of opioid abuse.” Researchers “found the biggest uptick in” child suicide rates “occurred in states where the shift to illicit opioids was most pronounced” due to conditions in their environments worsening due to the opioid crisis. The findings were published in Demography.

Related Links:

— “Opioid Crisis May Be Driving Surge in Youth Suicides,” Ernie Mundell, HealthDay, December 5, 2023

MedPage Today (12/4, DePeau-Wilson) reports, “Suicide rates among Black women increased from 1999 to 2020, especially among teens and young adults, according to an analysis of national data.” The increases “were concentrated among Black women and girls ages 15 to 24, rising from 1.9 to 4.9 per 100,000 during that time period, the researchers reported.” The findings were published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

HealthDay (12/1, Mundell) reported that having a “naturally sunny disposition” may “protect you from dementia as the years advance…research shows.” According to a team at Northwestern University in Chicago, “certain personality traits – being conscientious, outgoing and positive – appear to lower a person’s odds for a dementia diagnosis.” Meanwhile, “being neurotic and more negative in outlook and behavior was tied to a higher risk for mental decline.”

The findings were published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia.

Related Links:

— “Your Personality Might Help Shield You From Dementia,” Ernie Mundell, HealthDay, December 1, 2023

HealthDay (12/1, Mundell) reported research from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore found that “participating in repeated collision sports like football may have a direct link to long-term inflammation in the brain.” Additionally, “football players … performed notably worse than swimmers on tests that tracked learning and memory skills.” The researchers “examined PET and MRI brain scans of 27 former NFL players, taken between 2018 and early 2023.” The findings were published in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “Persistent Inflammation Could Drive Brain Issues in Former Football Players,” Ernie Mundell, HealthDay, December 1, 2023

mHealth Intelligence (12/1, Vaidya) reported that “while telehealth use has dropped nearly 25 percentage points from peak usage in 2020, certain specialties, like mental health, infectious disease, and obstetrics, still have higher-than-average telehealth use, according to new data” from Epic Research.

Usage of telehealth “skyrocketed during the initial peak early in the pandemic but has since declined, though usage remains higher than pre-pandemic levels.” The data show “telehealth use encompassed less than 1 percent of all visits in the last three quarters of 2019,” but that “figure jumped to 31.2 percent in Q2 2020 before dropping to 5.8 percent in Q3 2023.”

Related Links:

— “Telehealth Use Remains High in Mental Health, Infectious Disease Care,” Anuja Vaidya, mHealth Intelligence, December 1, 2023