While overall support for childhood vaccines remains strong, a new UNICEF report documents a significant decline in the public’s faith in the importance of these vaccines. Confidence in childhood immunizations dropped by up to 44 percentage points in some countries during the pandemic, according to the report. Meanwhile, 67 million children missed one or more of their vaccines over three years because of pandemic-related strains on health systems, scarce resources, conflict, fragility and decreased confidence. “At the height of the pandemic, scientists rapidly developed vaccines that saved countless lives. But despite this historic achievement, fear and disinformation about all types of vaccines circulated as widely as the virus itself,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell. “This data is a worrying warning signal. We cannot allow confidence in routine immunizations to become another victim of the pandemic,” Russell said in a UNICEF news release. “Otherwise, the next wave of deaths could be of more children with measles, diphtheria or other preventable diseases.” Perception about the importance of vaccines for children declined by more than one-third in the Republic of Korea, Papua New Guinea, Ghana, Senegal and Japan, according to the “State of the World’s Children 2023: For Every Child, Vaccination.” Only in China, India and Mexico did the perception about the importance of vaccines continue at the same level or increase. People under 35 and women…  read on >  read on >

Suspected suicide attempts linked to marijuana overdoses have been steadily increasing over the past decade, a new study reports. National Poison Data System records show a 17% yearly increase in reports of suicidal people who have been poisoned by using too much cannabis, said co-researcher Tracy Klein, an associate professor of nursing at Washington State University College of Nursing, in Vancouver. Nearly 18,700 cases of suicidal behavior associated with cannabis poisoning were reported to U.S. poison centers between 2009 and 2021, according to the report published online April 19 in JAMA Network Open. Nearly all cases (96%) involved the use of cannabis along with another substance like alcohol, benzodiazepines or other drugs, the study revealed. About 10% of these cases resulted in death, major disability, disfigurement or some other tragic outcome, the results showed. “People could just be misusing multiple substances at the same time and maybe have a preexisting condition like depression or anxiety, where the misuse of those substances really pushes them over the edge,” Klein said. “We are concerned about that because we know that the mental health status of the United States was really compromised during COVID.” These poisonings hit the young and the old particularly hard. Suicides linked to cannabis poisonings doubled among kids aged 5 to 13 in recent years, rising from 1.3% in 2019 to 3.1% in 2021,…  read on >  read on >

For people with epilepsy, living in lower-income neighborhoods is associated with worse mental functioning, new research suggests. For the study, the researchers looked at the memory, thinking ability and mental health of people with epilepsy, and found differences based on where they lived. Brain-health issues were more common among those from disadvantaged areas with fewer educational and employment opportunities, according to a report published online April 19 in the journal Neurology. “Epilepsy research has arguably ignored the potential impact of the social determinants of health in neighborhoods on cognition — factors that have been hiding in plain sight for many years,” said study co-author Robyn Busch, of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. “Our study shows that these neighborhood social factors are linked to epilepsy outcomes,” Busch said in a journal news release. Epilepsy, a brain disorder, causes recurring seizures. The researchers used a registry of people with temporal lobe epilepsy, the most common adult form of epilepsy. This is associated with a high risk for thinking problems and depressed mood. The study team identified 800 people, average age 38, whose epilepsy was resistant to treatment and who had been evaluated for potential epilepsy surgery. The investigators compared their scores on intelligence, attention, memory, other thinking skills, anxiety and depression. Using participants’ home addresses and the Area Deprivation Index, the researchers determined if each person lived…  read on >  read on >

One in five people who die by suicide experienced intimate partner problems that included divorce, separation, arguments and violence, new research shows. “I think people hear the term intimate partner problems and go straight to intimate partner violence. That is a component of intimate partner problems, but it’s not just about violence,” said study author Lt. Cmdr. Ayana Stanley, who began researching the issue while at the University of Georgia (UGA) College of Public Health. “Romantic partners experience other kinds of relationship stressors, such as general hostility, arguments and jealousy,” said Stanley, who is now a program coordinator in the division of violence prevention at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “By sharing resources for seeking help, we send a strong message that every life has value, there is hope and that seeking help is a sign of strength.” Suicide is a leading cause of death among Americans, with more than 48,000 people dying by suicide in 2021, according to the CDC. For those who had intimate partner problems, it was more common to have other contributing issues, such as mental health problems, recent legal issues, and life stressors including unemployment and family problems, according to the researchers, who culled data from 2003 to 2020. In suicides that did not involve intimate partner problems, the person who died was more likely to be…  read on >  read on >

Patients with a common vascular disease that causes blockages in their leg vessels had both worse symptoms and outcomes if they were Black or poor, new research finds. The study from Michigan Medicine looked at more than 7,000 patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD) who had a lower extremity bypass operation to improve circulation. PAD involves plaque blocking the vessels that carry blood from the heart to the legs. The condition was particularly disabling for Black and poor patients, who had a higher prevalence of chronic limb-threatening ischemia (inadequate blood supply), the most severe form of PAD. In these cases, amputation is often required. In fact, the researchers discovered that these patients were more likely to need an amputation between 30 days and up to one year after bypass surgery than white patients and those who were not socioeconomically disadvantaged. “While we have known that racial and socioeconomic disparities exist for patients with PAD, our study may be the first to show that the severe presentation of these patient populations serves as a mediator to poor outcomes after lower extremity bypass, particularly amputation rates,” said lead study author Dr. Chloé Powell, a vascular surgery resident at the University of Michigan Health Frankel Cardiovascular Center in Ann Arbor. “Health care providers need to recognize the vulnerability of certain subgroups to adverse outcomes and be on alert…  read on >  read on >

Young teens who vape and smoke cigarettes may be setting themselves up to be heavy smokers by the time they are older teens, a new study suggests. The researchers chalked it up to what they called the “entrenchment hypothesis.” “There has been a lot of attention on restricting e-cigarettes, so that they do not serve as a pathway into tobacco initiation,” said senior study author Jeremy Staff, a professor of sociology and criminology at Pennsylvania State University. “Our findings highlight that considering their impacts on youth who initiate smoking at an early age remains important as well.” Staff said, “Among early-smoking teens in both the U.K. and U.S., those who had vaped before age 15 were more likely to be smokers, as well as frequent tobacco smokers, by the time they reached late adolescence.” This study can’t prove that cigarette smoking and vaping cause heavier tobacco smoking in the late teens, only that there appears to be a connection, the researchers noted. E-cigarette use among teens who already smoke early in adolescence generates more harmful patterns of tobacco use later on in adolescence, said lead researcher Brian Kelly, from the department of sociology at Purdue University, in West Lafayette, Ind. “Many studies on youth vaping focus on the important goal of prevention of smoking, but less often consider youth who begin smoking early,” Kelly said.…  read on >  read on >

Depression during pregnancy may be linked to heart disease as soon as two years later, new research suggests. This is true even when patients don’t have high blood pressure during pregnancy, the research team reports April 19 in the Journal of the American Heart Association. “We need to use pregnancy as a window to future health,” said lead study author Dr. Christina Ackerman-Banks, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology-maternal fetal medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. “Complications during pregnancy, including prenatal depression, impact long-term cardiovascular health,” she said in a journal news release. “The postpartum period provides an opportunity to counsel and screen people for cardiovascular disease in order to prevent these outcomes.” About 20% of women experience depression during pregnancy, the researchers noted. They shouldn’t panic as the study doesn’t prove a direct cause-and-effect relationship between depression and heart disease, only an association. Researchers found the most significant association was between depression and ischemic heart disease (narrowed arteries), with depressed women having an 83% higher risk of developing the condition within two years of delivery than those without a depression diagnosis. When arteries are narrowed, less blood and oxygen reach the heart muscle. This can lead to heart attack, the American Heart Association explains. “I recommend that anyone diagnosed with prenatal depression be aware of the implications on…  read on >  read on >

Nearly one-third of Americans live in counties with unhealthy air, according to a new report from the American Lung Association. One in three, or 120 million, people lives with unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution, the “State of the Air” report says. While air quality has improved overall, there are major differences between Eastern and Western states and in air pollution exposure for white people and people of color, according to the association. “The good news is that ozone pollution has generally improved across the nation, thanks in large part to the success of the Clean Air Act. In this year’s ‘State of the Air’ report, we found that 19.3 million fewer people are living in areas with unhealthy levels of ozone pollution, also known as smog,” said Harold Wimmer, national president and CEO of the association. “However, the fact is that 120 million people still live in places with unhealthy air pollution, and not all communities are seeing improvements. This is why it is crucial to continue our efforts to ensure that every person in the U.S. has clean air to breathe,” Wimmer added in an association news release. The report, which covers 2019 to 2021, found about 54% of those living with unhealthy air quality were Black Americans and other minorities. People of color were 64% more likely to live in a…  read on >  read on >