What We’re Reading
By Joy Burkhard, MBA
Founder and Executive Director, 2020 Mom
In this edition of What We’re Reading, I highlight a study on the top reasons young adults don’t access behavioral health care; the number one reason won’t surprise you, it’s cost. Another article is a reason for hope, a synopsis of how states and Congress are responding to increasing stresses and maternal mental health. I also highlight a study in this edition that helps us understand why women often have sudden onset of suicidal ideation during the postpartum period and explains what clinicians can do about it.
PANDEMIC
Born in a Pandemic, Part I: States Respond to Decline in Maternal Well-Being
Since the onset of the pandemic, federal and state lawmakers have passed historic funding and policy measures with direct implications for families who welcomed a child during these strange and stressful times.
Trends in state legislation affecting parents and their “pandemic babies” are summarized in this two-part State Legislatures News series. Here in part one, we explore legislation that supports maternal health.
MATERNAL EXPERIENCES
The Parental Burnout Test
Pearson worked with the researchers behind the survey to create a parental burnout test that was published this week in The Times. The 10 questions “can help clarify how depleted you feel — so hopefully you can get the help you need,” Pearson wrote.
FORMULA CRISIS
Imagine a World Where Men Had to Breastfeed Their Babies
As news of the American baby formula shortage spread last week, I was once again reminded of the ways in which new motherhood, venerated in theory, is not fully supported in practice…It is insulting to the many women who cannot breastfeed or cannot produce enough milk to keep their babies fed, and it is insulting to the women who choose formula because it is the most rational decision they can make — because their babies need it, because they can’t or don’t want to pump at work, because formula allows fathers to participate more.
GUN VIOLENCE AND MENTAL HEALTH
APA Joins Numerous Organizations in Denouncing Attempts to Link Mental Illness and Gun Violence
APA denounced the “false and harmful attempts to link mental illness and gun violence” in a statement issued yesterday in partnership with 59 other health, mental health, and youth services organizations.
The Complicated, Fraught Connection Between Gun Violence and Mental Health
Once again, lawmakers, mental-health professionals, gun-control advocates, the National Rifle Association and people across the land are searching for answers, and debating gun-control laws — or lack thereof — in the United States. “People with mental-health issues are more likely to be victims than perpetrators,” said Chethan Sathya, a pediatric trauma surgeon and director of Northwell Health’s Center for Gun Violence Prevention, headquartered in New Hyde Park, N.Y. “We have to be very careful how we talk about the link between the two,” he said. “When it comes to folks with mental-health issues these public-health strategies are important because they often involve the victims themselves.”
SUICIDE
What Makes a Perinatal Woman Suicidal? A Grounded Theory Study
In this study, researchers unpacked why women may have sudden suicidal thoughts in the postpartum period.
As Maternal Mortality Rate Rises, Colorado Health Organizations Tackle Mental Health and Drug Abuse
Mental health or substance use contributed to almost 60% of deaths, while mental health alone contributed to about 25% of deaths…Despite being only about 1% of the state’s population, Native Americans have been among the populations most impacted in Colorado. The committee found that in Colorado, people of Native American descent were 4.8 times more likely to die during pregnancy or soon after giving birth than non-Native people.
Trust for America’s Health and Well Being Trust Issue New Report on Substance Misuse and Suicide Crisis
Trust for America's Health and Well Being Trust released the new report Pain in the Nation: The Epidemics of Alcohol, Drug, and Suicide Deaths, the latest in a series tracking the nation’s deaths of despair crisis. This year's report found that deaths associated with alcohol, drugs, and suicide took the lives of 186,763 Americans in 2020, a 20 percent one year increase in the combined death rate and the highest number of substance misuse deaths ever recorded for a single year.
ABORTION
The ‘Open Secret’ on Getting a Safe Abortion Before Roe v. Wade
Through the 1940s and 1950s, medicine advanced to the point where health problems like heart disease and tuberculosis were generally no longer considered to be indications for therapeutic abortion. As a result, psychiatric justification became the primary rationale for therapeutic abortion before Roe.
ECONOMY
Americans Are More Stressed About Money Than Ever, and It’s Hurting Our Mental Health
Americans are more stressed about money than they’ve ever been, according to the American Psychological Association’s latest Stress In America Survey.
BEHAVIORAL HEALTH INTEGRATION
Strengthening Behavioral Healthcare to Meet the Needs of Our Nation
As physician leaders across the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) — the federal agency that administers Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) health insurance Marketplaces, programs through which more than 150 million Americans obtain health coverage – we are focused on supporting President Joe Biden’s Strategy to Address Our National Mental Health Crisis by ensuring our beneficiaries have access to equitable, high-quality health care services.
INSURANCE COVERAGE
Equal Mental Health Insurance Coverage is Elusive Despite Legal Guarantee
Unequal insurance coverage for mental and physical health is widely considered one of the major causes of the mental health crisis facing the United States. After two years of a pandemic that has fueled soaring rates of anxiety and depression and two decades into the worst drug epidemic in U.S. history, uneven coverage contributes to the current severe shortage of behavioral health services.
MEDICAL COVERAGE
Prior Authorization Back in the Spotlight on Capitol Hill — House Bill, Inspector General Report Shine Spotlight on Pre-approval Requirements
On Capitol Hill, the issue began to bubble up in late April, when the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a report examining Medicare Advantage plans’ denials of prior authorization requests.
Anthem Announces Partnership to Support Maternal Mental Healthcare
Anthem has announced that it will offer a digital solution to mothers in order to support maternal mental healthcare needs.
The payer partnered with a vendor, Happify Health, to offer a tool that mothers can use to support their recovery from postpartum depression.
SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH
Class, Employment, and the US Health Care System
In 1970, health care constituted 7 percent of gross domestic product, but now represents nearly 20 percent. Conversely, in 1970, manufacturing accounted for 24 percent of the economy and now represents 11 percent. Health care recently passed manufacturing as the largest sector in the United States’ economy.
TREATMENTS
Evaluation of Mental Health Mobile Applications
The Agency for Health Care Quality and Research announced a new evaluated framework for evaluation of mobile apps called the Framework to Assist Stakeholders in Technology Evaluation for Recovery (FASTER) to Mental Health and Wellness assesses the risk/safety, technical functionality, and mental health features of apps.FASTER can be used by advocacy organizations, payers, healthcare systems, and others to inform selection of mental health mobile apps.
Supporting Women With Mental Ill-Health in Pregnancy and After Birth: Lessons From South Africa
South Africa and the rest of the world must translate evidence, policy and guidance about maternal mental health into practice. If we don’t, women, children and communities will continue to suffer. It will cost us more if we do nothing.
TREATMENT BARRIERS
Examination of Young US Adults’ Reasons for Not Seeking Mental Health Care for Depression, 2011-2019
In 2019, the most-reported reasons by young adults for not seeking treatment were cost 54.7%; not knowing where to go for services 37.8%; thought they could handle the problem without treatment 30.9%; and fear of being committed or having to take medicine 22.8%.
INTERELATED
How Mothers Calm Their Distressed Infants With Soothing Signals: How Postpartum Depression Disrupts the Process
This study demonstrates empirically, for the first time, that synchronized physiology between mothers and babies plays a role in soothing distressed infants, and that treating postpartum depression with cognitive behavioral therapy can improve the synchronicity patterns and thereby augment mothers' ability to soothe their distressed babies.
Meta Hit With 8 Suits Claiming Its Algorithms Hook Youth and Ruin Their Lives
Meta is currently facing eight lawsuits alleging that the social media platform contributed to youth mental health issues, including suicides, eating disorders, and insomnia.
How Social Isolation and Loneliness Differ
I’ve always thought that the social isolation and loneliness of old age are interchangeable terms. It turns out they are distinct states, and they matter in the risk of dementia, a new study in Neurology concludes. Researchers plumbed the U.K. Biobank for data on more than 460,000 people over age 57, whom they asked about social isolation and loneliness, tested for memory and cognition, and whose brain volume they measured on MRI.
Social isolation was an objective measure: living alone, visiting friends or family once a month, taking part in club or volunteer activities once a month. Loneliness was subjective: often feeling lonely or seldom confiding in someone. After 11 years, socially isolated people were 26% more likely to develop dementia than those who weren’t; loneliness was not strongly correlated. Social isolation may be a risk factor to target early, the authors say.
Stress Accelerates Aging of Immune System, Study Finds
Stress — in the form of traumatic events, job strain, everyday stressors and discrimination — accelerates aging of the immune system, potentially increasing a person’s risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease and illness from infections such as COVID-19, according to a new study.