Medscape (3/30, Anderson) reports a panel of experts has “released a new report [pdf] containing recommendations to rectify the severe shortage of psychiatrists and the dearth of mental health services in the” US. Contained in the report are “a wide-ranging set of recommendations that touch on every area of the specialty, including training, funding, and models of care delivery.” American Psychiatric Association (APA) CEO and Medical Director Saul M. Levin, MD, joined the report’s lead authors to discuss “the report’s recommendations at a press briefing on March 28.” The experts “recommended new and advanced forms of treatment, such as collaborative care and telepsychiatry. ‘We should all be advocating for new, innovative models of care, such as telepsychiatry, which can increase access to specialty psychiatric services across the country,’ said Dr Levin.” The APA now “has a toolkit to help educate psychiatrists and other healthcare” professionals “on how to practice telepsychiatry, said Dr Levin.”

Related Links:

— Medscape (requires login and subscription)

Reuters (3/30, Kelland) reports, “Depression is now the leading cause of ill health and disability worldwide, the World Health Organization (WHO)” announced on March 30, “with more than 300 million people suffering” from the disorder. In fact, “rates of depression have risen by more than 18 percent since 2005, but a lack of support for the mental health combined with a common fear of stigma means many do not get the treatment they need to live healthy, productive lives.” The organization is now “running a mental health campaign to tackle stigma and misconceptions called ‘Depression: Let’s Talk.’”

The New York Daily News (3/30, Jagannathan) reports the WHO campaign “urges sufferers to both seek and get help for depression.” Currently, the WHO “estimates depression and anxiety fuel a global loss of roughly $1 trillion associated with lost productivity, people being unable to work and health care expenses…said” Dr. Shekhar Saxena, director of the WHO’s Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse. Even in countries with higher incomes and “advanced health care systems,” almost “half of people suffering from depression aren’t properly identified or treated.”

Related Links:

— “‘Let’s Talk’, WHO says, as depression rates rise 18 percent in a decade,” Kate Kelland, Reuters, March 30, 2017.

The Philadelphia (PA) Inquirer (3/29, Giordano) reports, “Women who suffered multiple traumatic events as they were growing up are at significant risk of serious depression beginning in the years leading into menopause,” researchers found.
HealthDay (3/29, Preidt) reports investigators arrived at these conclusions after following some 250 women for “16 years.” The findings were published online March 29 in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

Related Links:

— “Study: Girlhood trauma linked to depression in menopause,” Rita Giordano, Philadelphia Inquirer, March 29, 2017.

Reuters (3/29, Reaney) reports that “heroin use in the United States has risen five-fold” over the past 10 years, while heroin addiction “has more than tripled, with the biggest jumps among whites and men with low incomes and little education,” researchers say. They found “no differences in heroin use or addiction among the major regions of the country.” Their findings were published online in JAMA Psychiatry.

CNN (3/29, Kounang) reports that “more people die from drug overdoses than from guns or car accidents.” Now, more people die of drug overdoses than died from AIDS during the “peak” of the epidemic in 1995.

TIME (3/29, Sifferlin) reports that heroin use increased among white Americans “increased from 0.34% in the earlier years to 1.90% in the later years,” compared to “0.32% in 2001-2002 and 1.05% in 2012-2013” among non-whites.

Related Links:

— “Heroin use, addiction up sharply among U.S. whites: study,” Patricia Reaney, Reuters, March 29, 2017.

USA Today (3/29, O’Donnell) reports “premature deaths among those aged 25-44 were way up in 2015,” driven primarily by “a surge of drug overdoses in suburban areas,” a report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation revealed Wednesday. The report also found “a rural and urban divide, along with racial differences.”

Related Links:

— “Ranking of healthiest counties revealed as suburban overdoses soar,” Jayne O’Donnell, Frank Gluck and Darla Carter, USA Today, March 29, 2017.