The Washington Post (6/20, Achenbach, Keating) reports that the opioid epidemic is “swamping hospitals,” with a report by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality “showing 1.27 million emergency room visits or inpatient stays for opioid-related issues in a single year.” According to the report, Maryland tops the list for inpatient care due to opioids.

Related Links:

— “In just one year, nearly 1.3 million Americans needed hospital care for opioid-related issues,” Joel Achenbach and Dan Keating, Washington Post, June 20, 2017.

In an opinion piece in the New York Times (6/21, A21, Subscription Publication), Phillip Atiba Goff, president of the Center for Policing Equity, and Kim Shayo Buchanan, senior academic writer at that same center, write in wake of the recent Seattle police shooting of Charleena Lyles, a pregnant woman with mental illness, “People with untreated mental illnesses are disproportionately likely to attract police attention.” In particular, “the combination of mental illness, racial segregation and poverty is…likely to result in police contact, often leading to arrest.”

Over the past five decades, however, the US “has seen a stunning decline in resources devoted to public mental health.” Goff and Buchanan conclude, “The cure for these too frequent police-involved shootings must include serious changes within law enforcement” coupled with a recommitment “to changing how we manage mental health if we are to reduce the chances that illness will be treated with gunshots.”

Related Links:

— “Charleena Lyles Needed Health Care. Instead, She Was Killed.,” PHILLIP ATIBA GOFF and KIM SHAYO BUCHANAN, New York Times, June 20, 2017.

HealthDay (6/21, Preidt) reports, “Opioid-related hospitalizations among women in the United States increased far faster than among men between 2005 and 2014,” according to the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Data indicate “hospitalizations involving opioid painkillers or heroin rose 75 percent” among women versus 55 percent among men.

Related Links:

— “Opioid-Linked Hospitalizations Rising Fastest for Women: Study,” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, June 21, 2017.

MedPage Today (6/21, Boyles) reports, “Treating depression and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in patients with both conditions reduced hospital emergency department (ED)” use “and hospitalizations,” researchers found in an analysis of Medicare data including some 16,075 beneficiaries. The findings were published in the August issue of Respiratory Medicine.

Related Links:

— “Study Looks at ‘Interplay’ of COPD and Depression Meds,” Salynn Boyles, MedPage Today, June 21, 2017.

HealthDay (6/21, Preidt) reports that about 20 years “after the US farm crisis, the suicide rate among American farmers remains much higher than among other workers,” researchers found. The study revealed that between 1992 and 2010, “230 US farmers died by suicide.” Farmers “in the West had the highest rate, accounting for 43 percent of all farmer suicides, followed by those in the Midwest (37 percent), the South (13 percent), and the Northeast (6 percent).” The findings were published online May 2 in the Journal of Rural Health.

Related Links:

— “Suicide Risk Especially High for U.S. Farmers,” Robert Preidt, HealthDay, June 21, 2017.