Kaiser Health News (9/23, O’Hagan) reports that epidemiologist Kimberly Repp found some new insights about suicide after she accompanied one of Washington County, Oregon’s medical examiner’s death investigators for a year. Data revealed “a surprising number of suicides at hotels and motels” and “also showed a number of those who killed themselves had experienced eviction or foreclosure or had a medical visit within weeks or days of their death.” Furthermore, the data “revealed that people in crisis regularly turn their pets over to the animal shelter.” Using Repp’s findings, Washington County suicide prevention coordinator Debra Darmata “began offering…training to motel clerks and housekeepers, animal shelter workers, pain clinic staffers and more.” Preliminary data show that the county’s suicide rate fell by 40% between 2012 and 2018.

Related Links:

— “Want To Reduce Suicides? Follow The Data — To Medical Offices, Motels And Even Animal Shelters, “Maureen O’Hagan, Kaiser Health News, September 23, 2019

HealthDay (9/23) reports that “the youngest kids in class are being diagnosed with” attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD), “intellectual disability and even depression around 30% more often than their oldest classmates,” research indicates. After examining “electronic health care records from more than one million school children in the” UK, researchers “found that children born in the last quarter of a school year were 36% more likely than kids born in the first quarter of a school year to be diagnosed with AD/HD.” In addition, “the youngest kids were 30% more likely to have an intellectual disability and 31% more likely to have depression than their older classmates.” The findings were published online Sept. 23 in JAMA Pediatrics.

Related Links:

— “Youngest in Classroom Diagnosed More Often With ADHD, Other Problems, “Serena Gordon, HealthDay, September 23, 2019

Healio (9/23, Demko) reports, “Current risk prediction algorithms for cardiovascular disease that do not include severe mental illness as a predictor could be underestimating” cardiovascular disease (CVD) “risk by as much as 60%,” research indicated. The findings of the “prospective cohort study of 495,388 primary care patients aged 30 to 74 years without prior CVD (the PREDICT study)” were published online Sept. 18 in PLOS ONE.

Related Links:

— “Cardiovascular disease risk may be underestimated among mentally ill, “Savannah Demko, Healio, September 23, 2019

NBC News (9/22, Stenson) reports on its website that autism research is moving away from finding a cure and toward helping people with autism “lead healthier, happier lives.” The article says, “When autism research started to really accelerate a couple decades ago, many scientists thought finding a cure might be easier,” but autism researcher Len Abbeduto, the director of UC Davis’ MIND Institute in Sacramento, said, “I think that given the complexity and the variability of the causes and the manifestations of autism, trying to come up with a cure is probably not the right approach.”

Related Links:

— “Why the focus of autism research is shifting away from searching for a ‘cure’, “Jacqueline Stenson, NBC News, September 22, 2019

MD Magazine (9/20, Walter) reported that “sertraline (Zoloft), a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI),” appears to lead “to an early reduction in anxiety symptoms commonly found in depression, long before any of the depressive symptoms are reduced,” research indicated. Included in the study were 653 patients. The findings of the “double-blind, placebo-controlled randomized trial” were published online Sept. 19 in The Lancet Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Common Antidepressant More Effective for Treating Anxiety, “Kenny Walter, MD Magazine, September 20, 2019