Doctors have dubbed kids’ progression from eczema to asthma the “atopic march,” and they know more about how it affects white children than their Black counterparts. Research scheduled for presentation at an upcoming meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI) sheds new light on racial disparities. The atopic march typically begins early in life with atopic dermatitis (eczema) and can eventually progress to asthma, as well as environmental and food allergies. In the new study, the researchers found that while Black children are more likely to develop asthma, they’re less likely than white children to be evaluated for eczema by an allergist. “We already know that Black children have higher rates of asthma,” said study author Dr. Ellen Stephen, an allergy/immunology fellow at Rush University Medical Center, in Chicago. “But the atopic march has just not been studied in Black children as widely as it has in white children.” Her team reviewed medical charts of nearly 1,000 children, aged 18 and under, who were diagnosed with eczema at a single medical center. In all, 728 Black children and 246 white children had an eczema diagnosis. Of those, 31% of Black children were likely to have an asthma diagnosis, compared to 10% of white children. In all, nearly 47% of Black children and 69% of white children were evaluated by an allergist.…  read on >  read on >

A growing number of U.S. kids are landing in hospital emergency rooms for a mental health crisis. Now a new study finds that many do not get follow-up care after they’re discharged. Experts said the findings, published Feb. 13 in the journal Pediatrics, are yet more evidence of the cracks in the nation’s mental health care system — especially when it comes to helping kids. Of more than 28,000 U.S. kids discharged from the ER for a mental health concern, only about half had a follow-up health care appointment within a month, researchers found. More than one-quarter were back in the ER within six months. The results are, unfortunately, no surprise, the researchers said. Past studies have illustrated the ways in which the system is failing kids in mental health crisis. “But this puts some concrete numbers on what we’re seeing in practice,” said lead researcher Dr. Jennifer Hoffmann, a pediatric emergency physician at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Kids in mental health crisis can end up in the ER for various reasons. Sometimes they are suicidal or have intentionally harmed themselves. Sometimes they are having a panic attack or a serious behavioral issue. Sometimes they or their parents have nowhere else to turn for mental health help. For those families, Hoffmann said, the ER is a “safety net.” “This may be the first time…  read on >  read on >

If you’re one of the millions seeking The One this Valentine’s Day, here’s a tip: Try swiping less. This is the main message from a new study that found excessive swiping on dating apps can cause partner choice overload, among other issues. “Dating apps may give us the impression that there is always someone better just around the corner, so we keep on swiping,” said study author Jörg Matthes, a professor of communication at the University of Vienna in Austria. “That’s not necessarily true: You may not need 99+ matches to find love.” (For the uninitiated, swiping right on a dating app means you’re interested in someone; swiping left means you’re not. Apps reward frequent swiping with more choices.) In the study of 464 dating app users between 16 and 25 years of age, those who swiped excessively were more likely to feel like potential partners were out of their league, fear being single, and /or experience partner choice overload. This was true if people listened to their gut and swiped quickly or gave potential dates more thought before swiping left or right. The more a person used dating apps, the more likely they were to be excessive swipers, the study showed. Some people use dating apps excessively, similar to compulsive gambling, Matthes said. “Excessive use can have negative psychological effects on people,” he said.…  read on >  read on >

An alarming new survey shows that American teen girls are experiencing record high levels of violence, sadness and suicide risk. Schools may be the answer to improving what’s happening for young people, according to the report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 3 in 5 girls — 57% — said they felt persistently sad or hopeless in 2021. That’s up 60%, the CDC reported, and those numbers are double the number of teen boys experiencing sadness or hopelessness. Girls fared worse than boys across nearly all measures, though all teens reported increasing mental health challenges, experiences of violence and suicidal thoughts and behaviors. LGBTQ teens also continued to experience extremely high levels of violence and mental health concerns. “High school should be a time for trailblazing, not trauma. These data show our kids need far more support to cope, hope, and thrive,” said Dr. Debra Houry, the CDC’s Chief Medical Officer and Deputy Director for Program and Science. “Proven school prevention programs can offer teens a vital lifeline in these growing waves of trauma,” she said in an agency news release. According to the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), 30% of teen girls seriously considered attempting suicide. About 18% experienced sexual violence in the past year, up 20% from 2017, when the CDC started monitoring this measure. About 14% had ever…  read on >  read on >

Exposure to wildfire smoke can increase the risk of premature birth, new research suggests. For the study, the researchers reviewed birth certificates and hospital delivery data for more than 2.5 million pregnant women in California from 2007 to 2012, and used satellite images and ZIP codes to compare daily estimates of wildfire smoke intensity. The study found that from the four weeks prior to conception and through the first 20 weeks of pregnancy, 86% of the women were exposed to at least one day of wildfire smoke. They had an average exposure of 7.5 days. Wildfire smoke was significantly associated with spontaneous preterm birth, the investigators found. Each additional day of smoke exposure slightly increased the odds of delivering prematurely. “Wildfires lead to acute and abrupt changes in air quality,” said lead study author Dr. Anne Waldrop, a maternal-fetal medicine subspecialist fellow at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. “And some emerging evidence suggests that wildfire smoke could be worse for your health than other types of pollutants. So, even as we work to decrease other forms of air pollution, with wildfires becoming more frequent, more intense, and happening on a much larger scale, exposure to wildfire smoke is a serious public health problem, especially for vulnerable populations like pregnant people,” Waldrop said in a news release from the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine. Wildfire smoke…  read on >  read on >

Researchers studying well water found current monitoring practices often fail to reflect actual groundwater pollution risks. The problem: Spikes in harmful bacteria, like those from animal and human waste, vary depending on the season. They may be higher at times when testing is less likely to be done. “This is concerning because many residents and homeowners across the country, including here in the Northeast, have been found to test their wells in colder months, which can cause a false sense of security and underestimate the true threat of harmful bacteria in their drinking water,” said study co-author Ranjit Bawa, a visiting assistant professor of natural resources and the environment at the University of New Hampshire in Durham. The research team studied this by looking at year-round water samples from nearly 50,000 wells across the state of North Carolina between 2013 and 2018. The investigators found a significant gap in the timing of sample collection from private wells and when they were likely to become contaminated. More than 44 million people in the United States depend on private drinking water wells. These wells are not federally regulated, the study authors noted in a university news release. Communities without access to public water systems also tend to be near sources of industrial and agricultural pollution, according to the report. The researchers focused on wells near hog farm…  read on >  read on >

Healthy young people who vape or smoke may be putting themselves at greater risk for developing severe COVID, new research finds. Both smoking tobacco and vaping electronic cigarettes may predispose people to increased inflammation, future development of severe COVID-19 and lingering cardiovascular complications, said lead study author Dr. Theodoros Kelesidis. He’s an associate professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, in Los Angeles. “The key message is that smoking is the worst, but vaping is not innocent,” Kelesidis said in a UCLA news release. “This has been shown for many lung diseases, but not for COVID. It was a quite interesting and novel finding that vaping changed the levels of key proteins that the virus uses to replicate.” For the study, the researchers examined blood plasma collected before the pandemic from 45 nonsmokers, 30 vapers and 29 cigarette smokers. The investigators tested the plasma to measure levels of since-identified proteins that the COVID virus needs in order to replicate. These proteins are known as ACE2, furin, Ang II, Ang 1–7, IL-6R, sCD163 and L-selectin. A protein called ADAM17 collectively regulates those last three proteins. The researchers found that plasma from healthy young people who smoke tobacco or vape had increased levels of furin, sCD163, and L-selectin, compared to nonsmokers. The findings suggest there may be increased…  read on >  read on >