New York, Virginia become first to require mental health education in schools

From CNN on 07/02/18:

On Sunday, New York and Virginia became the first two states to enact laws requiring mental health education in schools.

New York's law updates the health curriculum in elementary, middle and high schools to include material on mental health. Virginia's law mandates that mental health education be incorporated into physical education and health curricula for ninth- and 10th-graders.

For more click here.

To see the New York State laws enacted click here.

Editor's note:

It's hard to believe that it took until 2018, for New York and Virigina to become the first two states in the United States to require mental health education as part of the health education curriculum. 

Every time there's a mass shooting in the U.S, the politicans, funded by the NRA, state that these mass shootings are a mental health issue not a gun issue. However, these same politicians have not taken steps to see to it that the issue is addressed except in New York and Virginia.

More college students are turning to emotional support animals,

From the Inquirer on 01/21/19

"Emotional-support animals (ESAs) are owned by people with mental-health disorders and deemed necessary by medical professionals. The animals, which typically have not had special training, gained popularity in 2015 when they prompted a federal guideline for housing providers, but they seemed to go viral last year following news stories about someone trying to take a dog or a peacock or a goat onto an airplane — sometimes with success.

Ever since, ESAs have become the target of ridicule. Popeyes released an “emotional support chicken” carrier available only in airports. Ellen DeGeneres poked fun at them in her recent Netflix special. Some talking heads have questioned whether ESAs are just elaborate scams.

But despite the cries of “they’re just trying to bring their pet everywhere for free,” people — particularly those of the younger variety — keep turning to emotional-support animals as a means of treating depression and anxiety.

Besides perhaps airports, nowhere is the trend more apparent than on college campuses, some of which have seen residence halls turn into true animal houses as more students file paperwork to keep an emotional-support cat, dog, or hamster in their dorm room. The ESA trend took hold over the last several years, as rates of anxiety and depression among college students have soared in the last decade."

For more click here.

Editor's note:
I have written a few letters for existing clients where support animals in dorm rooms and apartments seem appropriate and helpful. I have also turned down requests from people just seeking an evaluation in order to obtain a letter of support.

MBH index - School lock downs 2017 - 2018

• Number of children who experienced school lock downs in the U.S. 2017-2018 = 4 million
• Number of school lock downs in the U.S. 2017 - 2018 = 6,200
• Number of school lock downs, on average, per day in U.S. schools 2017 - 2018 = 16

Source - Washington Post as reported in The Week on 01/11/19

Editor's note:
There is growing evidence that school lock down drills are very traumatizing to children which raises the question of whether the benefit of such practices are worth the psychological and social costs.

These statistics also make one pause and consider what kind of a society we have become as a result of our love of freely available guns and what kind of a society we want for our future.

Is there a significant difference in fatal police killings from state to state?

There are huge differences in the number of people killed by police by state.

Click on image to enlarge.

From Peter Moskos' blog, "Cops In The Hood" on 01/01/19

"The national annual average (2015-2018) is 0.31 (rate per 100,000). And yet New Mexico is 0.98 and New York is 0.09. This is a large difference. 

Or take Utah (because of this story in the paper). Utah has a murder and violence rate below the national average, a low poverty rate, and is 90 percent white. And yet people in Utah are almost 5 times as likely an in New York to be killed by a cop. Utah has murder rate lower than NYC, 1/5 the poverty rate, far fewer cops, and Utah is 90% white. In 2018, the rate of people shot and killed by police in Utah is multiple times higher than NYC. 

I'd speculate significant variables are (in no particular order) training, fewer cops per capita, fewer cops per mile (no backup), one-person patrol, more guns, gun culture, more meth, more booze, and race (with more white states having more police-involved shootings). 

The ten leading states -- as in cops most shootingest states -- in rank order, are New Mexico, Alaska, Oklahoma, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Wyoming, West Virginia, Montana, and Idaho. It certainly seems like if we were to focus on the states that have the highest rates of police-involved shootings (and by far), we could find some low-hanging fruit to reduce the number of said shootings. But to do this we'd have stop thinking of police-involved shootings as primarily related to race. 

Collectively the top-10 states are 4.9 percent African American (compared to 13 percent nationally). These are the cowboy states out west. The 10 states with the highest percentage of black population (collectively 25%) have a rate of police-involved homicide (0.24) that is below the national average."

For more click here.

Editor's note:
I have added the bolding.
Another factor which Moskos does not mention is politics. The high shooting states are red states while the low rate states are blue. Political orientation while not a cause does seem to be correlated.

Indiana offers to pay student loans for Mental Health Professionals willing to work in 11 rural counties

From US News & World Report on 01/07/19:

"The Indiana Department of Health is hoping to entice mental health care professionals to work in rural and opioid-stricken counties in the state by offering to help pay their student loans.

"This program will help bring more qualified medical professionals to rural Indiana communities and expand access to quality treatment for individuals with substance use disorder,” Jim McClelland, the state's executive director for drug prevention, treatment and enforcement, said in a release on the initiative.

For more click here.

Editor's note:
I wonder if other states will offer similar programs?

Pediatricians should talk with parents about guns and their children.

From Science Daily on 01/28/19 -

Paradoxically, as overall firearm ownership decreased in U.S. households with young children from 1976 to 2016, the proportion of these families who owned handguns increased. This shift in firearm preferences over decades from mostly rifles to mostly handguns coincided with increasing firearm-mortality rates in young children, researchers report Jan. 28, 2019, in Pediatrics.

"Almost 5 million children live in homes where at least one firearm is stored loaded and unlocked," Kavita Parikh, M.D., a pediatric hospitalist at Children's National Health System, and co-authors write in an invited commentary. "This study is a loud and compelling call to action for all pediatricians to start open discussions around firearm ownership with all families and share data on the significant risks associated with unsafe storage. It is an even louder call to firearm manufacturers to step up and innovate, test and design smart handguns, inoperable by young children, to prevent unintentional injury," Dr. Parikh and colleagues continue.

The Children's commentators point to the "extremely dangerous" combination of "the small curious hands of a young child" and "the easily accessible and operable, loaded handgun" and suggest that pediatricians who counsel families about safely storing weapons tailor messaging to the weapon type and the family's reason for owning a firearm.

For more click here.

Editor's note:

• There are more than 393 million guns in circulation in the United States — approximately 120.5 guns for every 100 people.
• 1.7 million children live with unlocked, loaded guns - 1 out of 3 homes with kids have guns.
• In 2015, 2,824 children (age 0 to 19 years) died by gunshot and an additional 13,723 were injured.
• For more click here.

Dads Who Change Diapers in Public Get Help From New York Law

From Governing on 01/07/19

Change is coming to men's restrooms in New York -- and it's going to be a big help to fathers all over the state.

A new law requires all new or renovated buildings in New York that have bathrooms used by the public to make changing tables available to both men and women.

The rule, which passed in April 2018 but didn't go into effect until the new year, applies to restaurants, stores and movie theaters as well as state facilities such as parks and offices of the Department of Motor Vehicles.

For more click here.

Editor's note:

Another law which influences social change in enhancing the equality of the sexes. This law influences changes in norms and attitudes in a positive direction.