Brain Health Coach and Consultant Leigh Richardson joins Dawn to respond to the latest reports from Axios on Mental Health. Her initial focus was on organizational behavior. She shifted to human behavior in 2003 after her son suffered a traumatic brain injury. Leigh has also been in ICU twice with brain injury. All of this fueled her need to understand how the brain works or why it doesn’t work.
REPORT:
(Axios)
A trio of new studies paints a grim picture of how overdose deaths, depression and barriers to care are... aligning to widen health disparities as the U.S. emerges from the pandemic...
Overdose deaths
What they found: Educational attainment was a huge factor in who might die from an overdose from 2000 to 2021, with differences becoming especially stark during the pandemic, a study published last week in JAMA Health Forum found.
From 2019 to 2021, the overdose death rate for people who didn't attend college at all increased by 30.6 per 100,000 people, the study found. In contrast, the death rate for people with at least some college increased by only 4.5 per 100,000...
"The opioid crisis has increasingly become a crisis disproportionately impacting those without any college education," the study concludes.
Teens with depression
What they found: In 2021, 1 in 5 adolescents had major depressive disorder, but less than half who needed treatment received any, per a study published this week in JAMA Pediatrics.
Teenagers of color — particularly Latinos — had the lowest treatment rates...
Adult depression and mortality
What they found: Adults with depression — particularly moderate or severe cases — are at higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, ischemic heart disease and other causes, according to a new study in JAMA Network Open...
In 2020, some 21 million U.S. adults (8.4%) had at least one major depressive episode. Researchers noted the onset of cardiovascular disease occurs an average of 7.5 years earlier in adults with mood disorders. Read more.
What is driving these spikes in depression and overdose deaths? And what can each of us do to help a loved one who may be struggling with these issues?
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