More than 150,000 avoidable deaths occur each year due to mental, emotional, and behavioral health problems. This includes nearly 50,000 suicide deaths and 100,000 overdose deaths. People with chronic persistent mental illness suffer a 20-year shorter life expectancy. This country urgently needs to address how we pay for mental health services. Medicaid is a major… Read More »
White paper, grey literature, black box warning. The nature of our medical research, presentation, reporting, and publication has defined the values associated with colors. A white paper is defined as an “authoritative” report on a subject. Grey literature is described as being “non-conventional, fugitive, and sometimes ephemeral.” And a “black box” warning alerts physicians and… Read More »
In an earlier post, we showed how rural prisons and census methods create distortions in county demographic and health statistics. In this post, we add further evidence and discuss the economic, political, and research implications of these potentially misleading data. National survey methodology may contribute to inaccurate data Census policy coupled with national survey methodology… Read More »
The 2020 Census is complete and the results will be released soon. Because of how we count people in prison, there may be inaccurate demographics and a virtual overestimate of people living and accessing services in rural communities. In this two-part series, we look at how rural prisons can skew county-level analyses of rural demographics… Read More »
President Biden released the National Strategy for the COVID-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness on January 21, 2020. It is an ambitious attempt to decrease the spread of the novel coronavirus and get hundreds of millions of Americans immunized. This COVID-19 vaccine plan, however, is missing a key element. Namely, primary care. An incomplete national strategy for… Read More »
Behavioral health — counseling, mental health care, and care for substance use issues — is one of the basic benefits associated with health insurance and healthcare delivery. The COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us of the gross inadequacy of current behavioral health to deliver high quality care to most Americans. The past 30 years of health… Read More »
The COVID-19 pandemic and the killing of George Floyd are further stressing the already strained U.S. mental health care system. Primary care doctors train to treat common mental health problems, and they can help alleviate this strain on the system. Mental health issues on the rise In a national survey [pdf] of primary care patients… Read More »
When a call came in from the county coroner, it was never good news. Every once in a while, her work included a shock big enough to share with the public health team where I served as Medical Director. This was the case that Monday afternoon. Two teenage deaths, likely from opioid overdoses, likely the… Read More »