ABC News (7/16, Kekatos ) reports, “Dangerously high temperatures have been sweeping across the southern, central and eastern U.S., leaving more than one-third of the country under heat alerts as of Tuesday afternoon.” Experts “tell ABC News that heat can…have a serious impact on mental health.” Research has “shown that extreme heat can exacerbate conditions such as depression, anxiety and suicide ideation.” Some “groups are especially vulnerable to the impacts of extreme heat including elderly adults, children and those with preexisting conditions, according to the American Psychiatric Association.” But, “anyone can be vulnerable to extreme heat.”

Related Links:

— “How extreme heat can impact your mental health as high temperatures sweep US,”Mary Kekatos, ABC News, July 16, 2024

The New York Times (7/16, Weiland ) reports, “More than 10 million calls, texts and chat messages have been answered by counselors working for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline’s three-digit hotline in the two years since it debuted, federal officials said on Tuesday.” Almost “two million of the 10 million interactions were text messages, while 1.2 million were calls answered by the Veterans Crisis Line, an option that allows service members and veterans to press 1 on a phone’s dial pad to reach help.” So far, “the Biden administration has funneled almost $1.5 billion into 988, federal officials said on Tuesday, and more than $200 million in grants will be given to states in the 2024 fiscal year to support the work.”

CNN (7/16, Davis) reports that “this year, text messages to 988 have increased 51% and calls 34% from the year before, a sign of the effects of expanded services, according to senior administration officials.”

The Hill (7/16, O’Connell-Domenech ) reports the hotline “has also answered roughly 20,000 chats and texts in Spanish, 20,000 video calls in American Sign Language and more than 475,000 calls, texts and chats from LGBTQ Americans since last year, according to” HHS.

Related Links:

— “The New York Times (requires login and subscription)

The Washington Post (7/15, McMahan) says, “About 7 percent of U.S. adults – nearly 18 million people – had suffered from long covid as of early last year, according to a recent report.” The survey also found “just 6 percent of the vaccinated and boosted respondents reported long covid symptoms vs. 8 percent of those who weren’t vaccinated.” The findings were published in JAMA. (One of the symptoms of long covid is depression.)

Related Links:

— “The Washington Post (requires login and subscription)

HealthPayerIntelligence (7/15, Waddill ) reports, “CMS released a brief [PDF] exploring the status of children with autism or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in Medicaid and CHIP.” About “5% of children between the ages of three and seventeen who are under public coverage have autism or ASD.” Meanwhile, “2% of children with private coverage and 2% of children without coverage were reported as having autism or ASD.” The federal agency “found that 8% of boys ages three to eleven and 8% of boys ages twelve to seventeen had autism or ASD, compared to 3% and 2% of female children respectively.”

Related Links:

— “CMS shares Medicaid, CHIP data on children with ASD, autism,”Kelsey Waddill, HealthPayerIntelligence, July 15, 2024

Psychiatric News (7/12) reported study results show that youth who took part “in a two-week family intervention to reduce time spent on smartphones and other screen media showed improved behaviors relative to youth that did not participate.” Psychiatric News added, “While acknowledging that ‘more research is needed to confirm whether these effects are sustainable in the long term,’ the study authors noted that this clinical trial data provides a causal link between a reduction in screen time and improvements in psychological symptoms.” The findings were published in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “Short-Term Digital Break Improves Child Behavior, Study Finds, Psychiatric News, July 12, 2024