More than 320,000 U.S. children lost a parent to drug overdose during the past decade, according to a new study reported May 8 in JAMA Psychiatry. What’s more, the death rate accelerated during the period, more than doubling between 2011 and 2021, researchers found. About 27 children per 100,000 had a parent die from an overdose in 2011. Ten years later, 63 children per 100,000 lost a parent to lethal drug use, results show. “This first-of-its-kind study allows us to better understand the tragic magnitude of the overdose crisis and the reverberations it has among children and families,” Miriam Delphin-Rittmon, administrator of the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, said in a news release. Nationwide death records show that nearly 650,000 people 18 to 64 died of a drug overdose between 2011 and 2021. Of those, an estimated 321,566 left behind a child, based on data from drug use surveys. “It is devastating to see that almost half of the people who died of a drug overdose had a child,” Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, said in a news release. “No family should lose their loved one to an overdose, and each of these deaths represents a tragic loss that could have been prevented.” These findings come on the heels of another study reporting a three-fold rise…  read on >  read on >

Parents striving to be “perfect” will never attain that goal, and the aim isn’t even healthy for their families, a new study says. The risks of striving for perfection are such that researchers have now created a scale to help parents track their burnout and, if necessary, counter it. The first-of-its-kind Working Parent Burnout Scale is a 10-point survey that helps parents measure their stress and fatigue in real time, researchers say. “If maybe you’re prioritizing making sure your house is spotless all the time, but then you don’t feel like you have time to go for a walk every night with your children, maybe you need to reorganize or find a way to make both of those things work,” lead researcher Kate Gawlik, an associate clinical professor at the Ohio State College of Nursing, said in a news release. About 57% of parents who took part in a new survey said they’re burned out. Burnout can happen when a parent sets unrealistic expectations for themselves, as part of a “culture of achievement” that’s been spurred in part by social media. “You can look at people on Instagram or you can even just see people walking around, and I always think, ‘How do they do that? How do they seem to always have it all together when I don’t?’ ” Gawlik said. “We have high…  read on >  read on >

Parents can be very effective buzzkills for their teens, just by letting kids know they’re being closely watched, a new study reports. Teenagers are less likely to drink, smoke or use drugs when parents keep tabs on their activities, according to findings published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. What’s more, teens don’t need to be busted at least once by their parents to get on the straight and narrow, results show. Simple awareness that parents are monitoring their behavior wound up cutting teens’ use of alcohol or drugs by 40%, without any actual punishment being doled out, researchers found. “Some parents think drinking or using drugs is something that kids are just going to do, no matter what,” lead researcher William Pelham, an assistant adjunct professor of psychiatry at the University of California-San Diego, said in a news release. “But that’s not true. Parents can make a difference.” Previous studies have found that teens are less likely to use drugs, alcohol or tobacco if they have parents who remain aware of their activities, know their friends, and know their whereabouts when they aren’t home, researchers said. The assumption up to now has been that monitoring works because parents are more likely to catch kids red-handed and inflict some sort of punishment like grounding them or taking away their smartphones, Pelham said.…  read on >  read on >

Nearly 100,000 U.S. children lost a parent in 2020 to gun violence or drug overdose, a three-fold rise since 1999, according to a new study. Overall, these two causes made up nearly a quarter (23%) of parental losses in 2020, almost double the level cited in 1999, according to a team who reported its findings May 4 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. “US youth are at high and increasing risk of experiencing parental death by drugs or firearms,” a team led by Mathew Kiang of the Stanford University School of Medicine concluded.  In the study, Kiang’s team noted that, “the U.S. is experiencing dual overlapping public health crises of drug poisoning … and firearm deaths. Since 1999, more than 1 million residents of the U.S. have died by fatal drug poisonings and more than 750,000 by firearms.” Just how much is all this affecting the nation’s children?  To find out, the researchers combed through federal death statistics, fertility data and population demographics to estimate how many parents lost their lives to drugs or gun violence in recent years. Many of these parents died young: The study found the average age of fatal drug overdose or gun injury to a parent was just 42. Fathers were three times more likely to die from these causes than mothers. Drug overdose deaths are rising especially…  read on >  read on >

Worries over health-related costs are plaguing the minds of older Americans of all backgrounds, a new poll suggests. Five of the six health-related issues that most people found very concerning had to do with health care costs, according to results from the University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging.  And the sixth issue – financial scams and fraud – also had to do with money, results show. “In this election year, these findings offer a striking reminder of how much health care costs matter to older adults,” Dr. John Ayanian, director of the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, where the poll is based, said in a news release. The poll is supported by AARP and Michigan Medicine, U-M’s academic medical center. Overall, 56% of people over 50 said they’re concerned about the cost of medical care for older adults, poll results show. Other top concerns included assisted living costs (56%), prescription medicine costs (54%), scams and fraud (53%), cost of health insurance or Medicare (52%), and the cost of dental care (45%), the poll found. The same six topics rose to the top regardless of age, gender, race, ethnic group, region of the country, political ideology or income level, researchers said. Other topics rounding out the top 10 health issues included access to quality assisted living (38%), overall quality of…  read on >  read on >

The silent symptoms of stress can be easily overlooked, but they’re important to recognize to protect one’s mental health, experts say. Visible symptoms of stress are fairly obvious – irritability, anger, impatience, muscle tension. “You may not be able to hide those for a long time. Immediately, people will notice it – family, friends and co-workers,” Dr. Asim Shah, chief of community psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, said in a news release. But the silent symptoms of stress might take months to be noticeable, Shah said. “If you are isolated and alone, no one may notice except for you,” Shah said. While some stress in life is normal, monitoring silent symptoms is important. If they grow worse over time or start interfering with daily life, it might be a sign you need the help of a mental health professional, Shah said. “The silent symptoms of stress can be when people lose interest with their life. They’ll stop doing the things they once enjoyed,” Shah said. “They will get anxious, nervous or afraid and avoid things they used to do because they are overwhelmed and overburdened by it.”   Other silent stress symptoms include weight loss or weight gain, purposely pulling out one’s hair, or biting one’s nails. To manage stress, Shah recommends first starting with physical activity and relaxation techniques. “You can try…  read on >  read on >

People in homes with gas or propane stoves regularly breathe in unhealthy levels of nitrogen dioxide, a new study says. Typical use of these stoves increases exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2) by an estimated 4 parts per billion, averaged over a year, researchers report. That’s three-quarters of the way to the NO2 exposure level deemed unsafe in outdoor air by the World Health Organization, researchers noted. “That’s excluding all outdoor sources combined, so it makes it much more likely you’re going to exceed the limit,” lead researcher Yannai Kashtan, a doctoral student in Earth system science at Stanford University, said in a news release. Breathing high levels of NO2 over time can intensify asthma attacks, and has been linked to decreased lung development in children, researchers noted. The mix of pollutants coming from gas and propane stoves could be responsible for as many as 200,000 current cases of childhood asthma, with one-quarter attributed to nitrogen dioxide alone, researchers estimated. Long-term exposure to NO2 from gas stoves also is high enough to cause as many as 19,000 deaths each year, researchers added. For the study, researchers used sensors to measure concentrations of NO2 throughout more than 100 homes of various sizes, layouts and ventilation methods. “I didn’t expect to see pollutant concentrations breach health benchmarks in bedrooms within an hour of gas stove use, and stay there…  read on >  read on >