For Immediate Release From NAMI-Minnesota!
Happy International Migrants Day!
As we celebrate all those who have immigrated to new lands for new opportunities, let us also appreciate the beauty of cultural exchange and the value of preserving our identities and traditions. Here's to a day of joy, peace, and celebration!
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Roughly two-thirds of Americans with a diagnosed mental health condition were unable to access treatment in 2021, though they had health insurance.
Most Americans With Mental Health Needs Don't Get Treatment, Report Finds
Roughly two-thirds of Americans with a diagnosed mental health condition were unable to access treatment in 2021
https://www.inseparable.us/AccessAcrossAme... though they had health insurance. And only a third of insured people who visited an emergency department or hospital during a mental health crisis, received follow-up care within a month of being discharged.
These are among the findings of a new report by the actuary firm Milliman
https://www.inseparable.us/AccessAcrossAme... and
https://us.milliman.com/en/, released Wednesday. The mental health advocacy group, Inseparable, commissioned the report and also released an accompanying brief offering policy solutions to address the gaps in mental health care:
https://www.inseparable.us/access/. "We kept hearing nightmare stories about Americans not getting the treatment that they needed because insurance companies were denying them care," says Bill Smith, founder of Inseparable. "But we didn't have enough data to show just how extensive and deep the problem was."
Read the full article HERE!:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/... ********
Learn about the legislative process, how to contact your elected officials, and the most effective ways to share your story. Participants will also get updated on NAMI's legislative priorities for the 2024 session.
Get Your Free In-Person Ticket HERE!:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/nami-smarts-t... ********
Americans' Physical Health Has Deteriorated Since The Pandemic: Gallup
Americans' physical and mental health are suffering more than before the pandemic, new data shows:
https://www.axios.com/2023/10/11/us-mental... and
https://www.axios.com/2023/11/07/us-health... The big picture: More Americans reported diabetes diagnoses, less regular healthy eating, high cholesterol and lower confidence this year, compared with before the pandemic, according to Gallup survey data released Thursday:
https://news.gallup.com/poll/546989/physic... "What we're seeing here is definitely pandemic-related," said Dan Witters, the director of Gallup's well-being research. "We're seeing a pretty substantial drop-off in healthy eating habits and high levels of energy to get things done each day."
"These trends are going to dovetail with the rising rates of obesity and diabetes," he added.
Obesity and diabetes are at record highs, per Gallup.
38% of American adults were obese in 2023, up from 32% in 2019.
People between 45 and 64 had the highest obesity rate this year, at 44%, and the biggest increase since before the pandemic, up 8 percentage points.
Between the lines: Gallup used body mass index to indicate obesity, but the American Medical Association said this metric has caused "historical harm:
https://www.axios.com/2023/06/16/bmi-body-... BMI has limitations when used for treatment.
"Factors other than obesity status or age could increase the risk of developing diabetes, including physical inactivity, race and ethnicity, and genetic predisposition," the Gallup report said.
Eating habits have worsened since 2019, including less produce consumption, the survey showed:
https://www.axios.com/2023/10/30/home-cook... 46% of survey respondents said they ate healthy all day before responding to the survey in 2023, down from 51% in 2019.
Meanwhile, home cooking fell to pre-pandemic levels in North America this year.
What we're watching: While exercise habits remained similar from 2019 to 2023, significantly fewer Americans feel active and productive every day.
In 2019, 50% of Americans said they felt active daily. In 2023, that figure dropped to 24%.
An increase in working from home, a byproduct of the pandemic, could be responsible for this change, Witters said:
https://www.axios.com/2023/09/16/work-from... and
https://www.axios.com/2023/06/23/work-from... "Getting over to the gym and getting in your workout, that's still intact," he said. "But we are not moving around as much as we used to."
Fewer people feel good about their physical appearance, too.
Details: Other key health metrics have also worsened, per Gallup.
28% of survey respondents said their physical health was near perfect this year, significantly less than 2019's 38%.
More survey respondents said they were being treated for high cholesterol in 2023 (25%) than in 2019 (21%).
Zoom out: Patients sought out weight loss drugs this year, a market that is expected to top $100 billion by 2030.
Ozempic and Wegovy were on the federal drug shortage list in May.
However, the two prescription medications have limited insurance coverage, are pricey and come with potential risks.
Read the full article HERE!:
https://www.axios.com/2023/12/14/american-... ********
When I first started taking anti-depressants in the early 1980s, several years before the advent of Prozac made these medications seem cool, I wasn’t too concerned about what was causing my deep and persistent unhappiness. My childhood had been traumatic, but I was also willing to believe that I had a “chemical imbalance” – the then-ascendant theory about the cause of depression. Perhaps I had a biological predisposition that wouldn’t have been triggered had I grown up under more benign circumstances. Whatever the source of my prolonged misery, I finally found relief with a tricyclic, a pre-Prozac class of anti-depressants – but only after more than half a dozen other medications had failed to alleviate my life-threatening condition.
I consider myself lucky to have had a positive experience of medication for a mental health condition. I am well aware that many others have not – especially those prescribed multiple psychiatric drugs simultaneously, which seems to happen with alarming frequency and with little apparent thought given to the potentially harmful effects of these combination cocktails. In any event, journalist Daniel Bergner makes a compelling case for abandoning this pharmacological approach in The Mind and the Moon: My Brother’s Story, the Science of Our Brains, and the Search for Our Psyches. This readable, well-written indictment of the field of biological psychiatry raises searching questions about the role medications should play – if any – in the treatment of psychosis, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other forms of severe mental illness.
Read the full article HERE!:
https://mindsitenews.org/2023/12/09/the-mi... VISIT:
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Posted By: agnes levine
Monday, December 18th 2023 at 1:15PM
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