Poverty is the fourth-greatest cause of death in the United States, according to new research. Researchers at the University of California, Riverside estimate that poverty was associated with 183,000 deaths in 2019 among people 15 years and older. And that’s a conservative estimate, they say, because the year was just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. “Poverty kills as much as dementia, accidents, stroke, Alzheimer’s and diabetes,” said David Brady, the study’s lead author and a UCR professor of public policy. “Poverty silently killed 10 times as many people as all the homicides in 2019. And yet, homicide firearms and suicide get vastly more attention,” he added in a university news release. People living in poverty have incomes less than 50% of the U.S. median income, the researchers noted. (In 2021, the median household income was $70,784 per household, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.) Impoverished Americans have roughly the same survival rates as richer folks until they hit their 40s. Then they die at significantly higher rates, according to the study. The analysis found that only heart disease, cancer, and smoking kill more people than poverty. Deaths related to obesity, diabetes, drug overdoses, suicides, firearms and homicides were all fewer than deaths associated with poverty. Researchers analyzed income data from the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan and death data from household…  read on >  read on >

Striking a better work-life balance might make you a more effective manager on the job, according to a new study. A survey of managers and their employees found that bosses who could shut off after-work emails, calls and job-related stress had greater success guiding underlings to meet work goals. “We found that when leaders psychologically detached from work when at home — they did not actively think about work-related issues, but instead engaged in activities that allowed them to disconnect and recharge — they felt more energized the next day at work, in ways that made them more effective as rated by their direct reports,” said study lead author Klodiana Lanaj. Managers who were best able to distinguish between their work life and their home life ended up “rated as more transformational and powerful by their subordinates,” said Lanaj, an associate professor of management at the University of Florida Warrington College of Business. “In contrast, on days when leaders kept ruminating about negative aspects of their work while at home, they felt more drained the next day at work, and were less transformational and powerful,” she added. Lanaj and her colleagues in 2019 surveyed 73 full-time work managers/leaders, including human resources managers, directors of finance, general managers and/or chief engineers. Nearly 6 in 10 were women, and the majority were white, with an average age…  read on >  read on >

With so many American kids and teens dealing with depression or anxiety, pediatricians are increasingly stepping in as mental health care providers. Now, a new study suggests they are doing a decent job — but too few kids are being referred for talk therapy. Researchers found that in cases where a pediatrician prescribed medication for a child’s depression or anxiety, it was by and large appropriately done. Of kids who later saw a mental health specialist, few had their medication adjusted — a sign, experts said, that the original prescription was right. On the other hand, the study found, only one-third of kids prescribed medication also received a referral to see a therapist. That’s a concern, because if kids have symptoms substantial enough to warrant medication, they should also receive some type of counseling, said Eric Butter, chief of psychology at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. “A pill never taught a kid how to cope better,” said Butter, who wrote an editorial published April 17 with the study in the journal Pediatrics. It’s not clear why only a minority of children in the study were referred to a therapist. However, Butter said he suspects it’s because of a well-known national problem: There are too few child mental health specialists to meet the demand. “I think that 33% figure might be higher if pediatricians had…  read on >  read on >

Deciding to go into therapy is a big move, one that people sometimes struggle with for a variety of reasons. But now that you’ve realized therapy would be helpful for you, how to find a therapist? It’s important to know what outcome you’re hoping for and what you feel you need help achieving. It will take a little research to determine which professionals your insurance will cover and how you’ll pay any out-of-pocket costs, but asking the right questions can help you ensure you have a qualified therapist who’s also the right fit for you. Know your options While numerous types of therapy exist, perhaps the best known is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which is used to treat a number of mental health issues, from anxiety to eating disorders. It focuses on uncovering unhealthy patterns of thought and exploring how a person’s thoughts, feelings and behaviors affect each other, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). “Cognitive behavioral therapy is going to be an approach to treatment that looks at or tries to understand current functioning problems and address what’s maintaining those and how might a person’s current behaviors and cognitions be contributing to those challenges,” said Lynn Bufka, a clinical psychologist in Maryland and the American Psychological Association’s associate chief for practice transformation. Another type is relational psychotherapy, often focused on couple…  read on >  read on >

Consistently good sleep is important for everyone, but it is particularly important for patients with schizophrenia, a new study suggests. Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh, along with collaborators in Italy, used wrist monitors to measure activity and rest in 250 people, including 150 patients with schizophrenia, in both outpatient settings and in psychiatric hospitals. The investigators found that the schizophrenia patients had erratic sleep patterns, dysregulated transitions between sleep and wake cycles, and excessively rigid daily routines that were predictive of worse symptoms. “Regulating sleep and wake cycles is important for your overall health and our findings can also be extended to people without underlying mental health conditions,” said senior study author Dr. Fabio Ferrarelli, an associate professor of psychiatry at Pitt. “Most people can benefit from better sleep hygiene and paying attention to their daily routines by incorporating activity and variety in their daily lives.” Well-established research literature suggests that people suffering from schizophrenia have trouble falling asleep and get poorer rest than people without mental health conditions. Sedatives used to manage schizophrenia symptoms can extend sleep to 15 hours per day. Getting too much sleep like this can have a negative effect on symptoms. “It’s important to be mindful of how drugs that we prescribe to patients affect their health more broadly,” Ferrarelli said in a Pitt news release. “Our study shows…  read on >  read on >

The kids, no matter how they are conceived, are all right. That is the main takeaway from a new study by British researchers that found no real differences in the psychological well-being of kids who were born via sperm/egg donation or surrogacy and those born naturally by the time they reached the age of 20. “Children born through third-party reproductive donation — egg donation, sperm donation or surrogacy — are well-adjusted and have positive relationships with their parents right up to adulthood,” said study author Susan Golombok, former director of the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge. For the study, the researchers followed 65 families with children born via assisted reproduction from infancy until the child turned 20. Moms and kids were interviewed and filled out questionnaires about their relationships. Their answers were compared to those of 52 families of children conceived naturally during the same period. The bottom line? “The absence of a biological [genetic or gestational] connection between children and their parents does not interfere with the development of positive relationships between them or the psychological well-being of the child,” Golombok said. The new findings are consistent with previous assessments the researchers made at ages 1, 2, 3, 7, 10 and 14, she added. Kids aren’t all that fussed about how they were born, but it may be better to…  read on >  read on >

A teenager’s brain power appears to have little bearing on whether they will become overweight or obese as adults. British researchers found that, on average, sharper teens weighed only slightly less in adulthood than siblings who scored lower on tests of thinking skills, according to a new study published April 13 in the journal PLOS Medicine. The difference amounted to just under a half-pound for a 6-foot-tall adult, said lead author Liam Wright, a senior research fellow in population health at University College London. “We found a very small association that in practice means that, on average, siblings with higher cognitive ability are unlikely to weigh much less than siblings with lower cognitive ability,” he said. The research refutes prior studies that have linked low cognitive scores in teens to higher risk of obesity in later life. That’s because those earlier studies looked at general populations, and didn’t take into account other powerful factors besides smarts that could influence a person’s weight, Wright said. “The problem with comparing people from the general population according to their cognitive ability and BMI is that unobserved factors may explain the association,” he said. (BMI, or body mass index, is an estimate of body fat based on height and weight.) To account for those unknown factors, Wright and his colleagues analyzed data on 12,250 siblings from more than 5,600…  read on >  read on >