Healio (4/16, Weller) reported, “Even with health insurance, people with opioid use disorder [OUD] receive lower quality preventive and chronic care as well as lower quality care coordination,” investigators concluded after conducting “a cross-sectional study using deidentified data from 125,973 people (55.1% women; 62.1% white; mean age, 59 years).” The study “evaluated quality of care by matching the outpatient data of 79,372 adults with OUD who had commercial or Medicare Advantage insurance with 46,601 comparators across preventive care, chronic illness care and care coordination.” The findings were published online April 8 in JAMA Network Open.

Related Links:

— “ “Madison Weller, Healio, April 16, 2021

According to the Washington Post (4/16, Chesler), across the US, poison control centers are reporting “a spike in the number of children who have ingested THC after eating their parents’ edibles, rising from just 19 cases in 2010, before recreational pot was legalized in any state, to 554 cases last year.” Some officials at the centers “attribute the rise in large part to a growing number of states having legalized marijuana.” Now, there are “36 that allow marijuana for medical use – and 18 of them now allow adult recreational use or have recently approved laws to do so – with a number of others moving in that direction.”

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— “The Washington Post (requires login and subscription)

HealthDay (4/15, Preidt) reports researchers at the University of Minnesota found that “Americans’ eating habits have changed for the worse during the COVID-19 pandemic, including an increase in eating disorders.” The findings were published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders.

Related Links:

— “Bingeing, Stress Snacking: How the Pandemic Is Changing Eating Habits ” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, April 15, 2021

Psychiatric News (4/15) reports, “Outpatient psycho-oncology services, including pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy, significantly reduced distress in cancer survivors up to two years after their diagnosis,” researchers concluded in a study that “recruited 243 patients who had received a cancer diagnosis and were referred to psycho-oncology services.” The findings were published online April 1 in the journal Psycho-Oncology.

Related Links:

— “Psycho-oncology Services May Reduce Distress, Depression in Cancer Survivors, Psychiatric News, April 15, 2021

The New York Times (4/15, Rabin) reports data indicate that for the second year in a row, the number of suicides in the US declined in 2020 by 5%. However, “while the number of suicides may have declined over all, preliminary studies of local communities in states like Illinois, Maryland and Connecticut found a rise in suicides among Black Americans and other people of color when compared with previous years.”

Related Links:

— “U.S. Suicides Declined Over All in 2020 but May Have Risen Among People of Color “Roni Caryn Rabin, The New York Times, April 15, 2021