children's health

Securing Effective Mental Health Care For Adolescents Is A Struggle

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Tens of thousands of adolescents in Connecticut still do not have access to effective mental health care, despite the passage of a 2008 federal law requiring health insurers to provide equal benefits for mental health. Poor access to care leads to undiagnosed or misdiagnosed mental illness in children and adolescents, an increase in use of emergency rooms for psychiatric issues, and is a risk factor for severe mental illness, substance abuse, failure in school, and entering the juvenile justice system. National studies show that about 1 in 5 children and teens have mental illness, but only one quarter of them receive services. “That leaves about 125,000 children without mental health care in Connecticut,” said Susan Kelley, director of the Alliance for Children’s Mental Health. Some say that estimate is low, partly because it doesn’t capture mental illness misdiagnosed as behavioral problems. “I think that’s a very optimistic figure,” said Eliot Brenner, PhD, president and CEO of the Child Guidance Center of Southern Connecticut.

Mental Health

Colleges Scramble To Meet Soaring Demand For Anxiety, Depression Counseling

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As anxiety and depression among college students soars, universities in Connecticut and nationally are expanding their mental health counseling, even offering courses that address mental well-being. A new national report from the Center for Collegiate Mental Health at Penn State found that anxiety and depression were the top concerns of students seeking counseling services, and that self-harm behaviors have risen for the seventh year in a row. In another survey, 57 percent of directors of college counseling services said the severity of student mental health concerns increased between 2015 and 2016.  And according to a National College Health Assessment (NCHA) survey, 9.1 percent of college students reported being diagnosed in the last year with a psychiatric condition. “We have seen an increase this fall compared to last fall of almost 30 percent in students requesting to be seen by our counseling service,” said Kerry Patton, director of health and wellness at Quinnipiac University. Over the last few years, anxiety has surpassed depression as the most common reason students at Quinnipiac are seeking counseling services.

Surge In STDs Attributed To Unsafe Sex, Hookups

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The number of people diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease has increased in Connecticut as well as across the country, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports. Though experts note that some of the increase is due to better screening, they are concerned about an actual rise in cases and attribute that to more casual sex through hookup apps and an increase in unprotected sex. Nationwide, more than 2 million cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis were reported in 2016, the highest number ever, with chlamydia making up the majority of cases. The annual Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance Report, released in late September, found that a total of 1,598,354 cases of chlamydia were reported in 2016, a 4.7 percent increase over 2015.  Gonorrhea cases increased by 18.5 percent to 468,514, and syphilis increased 17.6 percent to 27,814 cases. In Connecticut, 14,028 cases of chlamydia were reported, 759 more than in 2015, a 5.7 percent rise.