(NEW YORK) — The federal government is investing in the health and wellness of individuals at risk for or living with HIV/AIDS through mental health and substance use services from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
In a release sent to ABC News, HHS announced Friday that $43.7 million from the agency’s Overdose Prevention Strategy will go towards three new grant opportunities that will be especially be targeted to underserved communities of color.
In 2020, there were almost 40 million people around the world living with HIV, according to the HHS. In the U.S., there are approximately 1.2 million people who have HIV, though about 13% don’t know it and need to be tested.
In the U.S., people of color have been majorly overrepresented in HIV diagnoses, due to a range of socioeconomic factors that increase their risk for HIV and HIV-related outcomes.
Black people represent approximately 40% of people with HIV, but make up only 13% of the U.S. population, according to HHS’ latest statistics from 2019. Hispanics and Latinos composed 25% of people with HIV, but make up 18.5% of the population.
The HHS reports that this disproportionate impact of Black and brown communities is also reflected in the demographics of newfound infections, demonstrating that prevention and treatment services are not reaching those who need it most.
“We remain committed to providing people at risk for, or living with HIV/AIDS, with the support and services they need to thrive – no matter who they are or where they live,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.
According to HHS, the funding targets areas of the country with the greatest disparities in HIV-related health outcomes and aligns with the National HIV/AIDS Strategy.
“We must increase supports and services for those who are at risk for or living with HIV/AIDS and have mental health and substance use needs,” said Miriam Delphin-Rittmon, HHS Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use and the leader of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
She added, “This means connecting them to easy-to-access, culturally appropriate prevention, treatment, and recovery services.”
One grant will fund substance use disorder treatment programs for racial or ethnic minority populations at high risk for HIV/AIDs.
Another program will provide training and education around the risks of substance use and HIV/AIDS, as well as with community health workers, neighborhood navigators and peer support specialists to ensure that services are reaching those in need.
The third program, the Minority AIDS Initiative, aims to reduced the “co-occurring epidemics of HIV, Hepatitis, and mental health challenges through accessible, evidence-based, culturally appropriate treatment that is integrated with HIV primary care and prevention services.”
Anyone seeking treatment for mental health or substance use issues is urged to call SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 800-662-HELP (4357) or visit findtreatment.samhsa.gov.
(NEW YORK) — The United Nations-backed Medicines Patent Pool announced Thursday it has signed an agreement with 35 companies around the globe to produce generic versions of Pfizer’s COVID-19 antiviral pill.
The agreement will allow the treatment to be supplied to 95 low- and middle-income countries, home to more than half of the world’s population, according to the MPP.
Clinical trial data has shown the pill, sold under the brand name Paxlovid, reduces the risk of hospitalization and death from COVID by 89% if taken within three days of the onset of symptoms.
Paxlovid is currently given as three pills twice daily over the course of five days.
The pill will be easier to distribute to hard-to-reach areas than monoclonal antibodies, which are given intravenously and require a medical professional to administer the treatment.
“We have established a comprehensive strategy in partnership with worldwide governments, international global health leaders and global manufacturers to help ensure access to our oral COVID-19 treatment for patients in need around the world,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said in a statement.
The statement continued: “The MPP sublicensees and the additional capacity for COVID-19 treatment they will supply will play a critical role to help ensure that people everywhere, particularly those living in the poorest parts of the world, have equitable access to an oral treatment option against COVID-19.”
Paxlovid is made up of two medications: ritonavir, which is commonly used to treat HIV and AIDS, and nirmatrelvir, an antiviral that Pfizer developed to boost the strength of the first drug.
Together, they prevent an enzyme the virus uses to make copies of itself inside human cells and spread throughout the body.
According to the agreement, the companies will be able to take out sublicenses to produce raw ingredients of nirmatrelvir, co-package it with ritonavir or both steps.
Six of the companies will produce the raw ingredients, nine companies will co-package it and the remaining companies will do both, the MPP said.
The companies producing the drug span 12 countries including Bangladesh, Brazil, China, the Dominican Republic, Jordan, India, Israel, Mexico, Pakistan, Serbia, South Korea and Vietnam.
The MPP said a license was offered to a 36th company in Ukraine, but it was unable to sign due to the war with Russia.
Under the agreement, the 35 companies will not be required to pay Pfizer royalties as long as COVID-19 is classified as a public health emergency by the World Health Organization.
However, after the emergency ends, the manufacturers will be able to sell their pills to low-income countries without royalties but will be subject to a 5% to 10% royalty for sales to middle-income countries.
The MPP expects some of these companies could submit their drugs for regulatory review to health agencies in their home countries or to the WHO later this year.
In January, the group signed a similar agreement with Merck for two dozen companies to produce a generic version of its COVID-19 pill, molnupiravir.
(NEW YORK) — When the omicron wave hit the United States, it spread throughout the country like wildfire.
Different models estimate that anywhere from 50% to 75% of Americans had been infected with the variant by the end of the surge.
So, what does that mean for the rest of the U.S. population that did not contract COVID-19 during the last wave?
Because omicron has shown the ability to cause breakthrough infections despite vaccination status, this has led to fears that everyone will catch the virus at some point. However, it is important to clarify that the COVID vaccines continue to be highly effective in its primary purpose in preventing hospitalization and death.
However, public health experts said it’s not inevitable Americans who have not gotten COVID yet eventually will, and that there are several reasons people have been able to avoid infection so far, including certain behaviors such as being serious about masking and social distancing, vaccination rates and maybe even genetics.
Why some people haven’t gotten COVID yet
Doctors said there are several reasons millions of Americans have yet to contract the virus.
One of those reasons is human behaviors, meaning people take proper precautions to lower their risk of getting infected.
“Sometimes people don’t get infected because they’re extremely cautious,” Dr. Mark Siedner, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, told ABC News. “There are people who have their own health behaviors or are concerned about their own health or their loved ones’ health.”
He continued, “Maybe they have comorbidities … they may be the kind of people who are largely homebound, or not really interacting with others or are particularly careful with things like social distancing and masking, and that certainly can stop a lion’s share of infections or certainly decrease the risk to where it’s unlikely you’d be infected.”
These people are also more likely to have been vaccinated and boosted, and the experts said it’s impossible to disregard the effect vaccination rates have had on preventing infections among Americans.
Dr. Jonathan Grein said there are also social and environmental reasons that could determine why some Americans have been infected and others haven’t, including how much time people spend with others and where they interact.
“Some people may come into more contact with people more regularly than others,” Grein, director of hospital epidemiology at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, told ABC News. “There’s probably environmental reasons as well, the virus is probably transmitted more efficiently in certain circumstances like classically the indoor, poorly-ventilated space compared to outside.”
However, genetics could also be playing a role.
Dr. Stuart Ray, a professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, said similar circumstances have been seen in people who were at high risk for HIV but did not contract the disease.
“One of the things that was discovered was people who had mutations in [a certain] receptor … and that was associated with not getting infected with HIV and in the uncommon people who do get infected, very slow progression to AIDS,” he told ABC News.
Although there has not yet been a clearly identified gene, Ray said it’s feasible some people are genetically less susceptible to COVID.
Is infection with COVID-19 inevitable?
The experts said they don’t believe that infection with COVID-19 is inevitable or at least inevitable for everyone.
“The fact that we’re now two years in and a substantial number of people have not yet been infected is good evidence that it’s not inevitable everyone will get it,” Grein said. “One thing we’ve clearly identified is that being vaccinated is the most important variable in deciding how protected somebody may be.
However, Ray said he thinks Americans who are unvaccinated but haven’t contracted the virus yet eventually will.
“As these variants have become more and more infectious, the likelihood that those people will get infected seems significant,” he said. “I do think it’s likely that people who have not been vaccinated and not had COVID will eventually get it because we are not going to be tracking infections as closely as we have in the past and so there will be less awareness as the virus renters the community … and at some point their bubble will burst if they are not immune.”
Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, said the COVID situation in Hong Kong is a “horror story” of what can happen in an unvaccinated country.
Hong Kong currently has the world’s highest COVID-19 death rate with a seven-day rolling average of 37.68 per million people, according to Our World in Data.
“Many people were vaccinated in Hong Kong, but it was the reverse of the U.S.,” he said. “In the U.S, so many seniors are vaccinated and boosted, but in Hong Kong, it was the opposite. Very few seniors were vaccinated so that when they did get it, even something ‘milder’ like omicron, many people were still dying, so that is a cautionary tale.”
There is no number that determines when the U.S. has enough immunity
Early in the pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci and other public health experts said the U.S. needed to vaccinate 75% to 85% to achieve herd immunity.
Currently, only 65.3% of all Americans are fully vaccinated.
Then, when U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced last month he would be dropping the remaining COVID-19 restrictions in England, supporters said one of the reasons was because government figures showed more than 98% of the adult population in England has detectable COVID-19 antibodies either from previous infection or from vaccination.
But officials said there is no number in the U.S. for which officials can declare there is “enough immunity.”
“The game has been changed to some extent because the virus has been able to infect so many people and evolve,” Ray said. “It’s level of infectivity right now is so high that the levels of antibodies required to prevent infection, the level we need to achieve is hard to sustain for a long period of time.”
(GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.) — A hospital in Michigan is giving birthing parents a new way to stay connected during a cesarean section delivery.
Spectrum Health Butterworth, a hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan, allows parents to watch the birth on a monitor display next to the operating table.
That’s how Amanda Koop got the first glimpse of her son, Charlie, when she gave birth to him at Spectrum Health Butterworth on Nov. 24, 2021.
“They turned the camera toward me right when they were going to pull him out,” Koop told “Good Morning America.” So, similar to a vaginal birth, I saw him come up and out, which was great.”
Koop, 36, had an unplanned C-section with Charlie, her first child.
She said that once it was decided she would be undergoing a C-section, a nurse asked her if she wanted the option to watch the delivery, which she otherwise would have not been able to witness. As is typical with a C-section, Spectrum Health Butterworth uses a drape to separate the expectant parents from the surgical procedure.
“I wanted to use the camera, because it could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I didn’t want to miss those moments, his first breath, that can be something that sometimes you could miss in a C-section,” said Koop, who added that the camera also made the C-section “less anxiety-provoking.”
“For me to be able to see him in those moments, OK, he’s out and he looks great, that was extremely calming and reassuring,” she said. “There’s a lot happening in those [operating rooms]. They’re loud and they’re bright, and I could kind of focus right on him, which was really nice.”
The camera and monitor system is the same one that doctors themselves use in other surgical procedures, such as laparoscopic surgeries, according to Dr. Cheryl Wolfe, a practicing, board-certified OBGYN and vice president and department chief of women’s health at Spectrum Health, a Michigan-based health system.
Wolfe said Spectrum Health Butterworth, which delivers around 7,500 babies annually, is the only hospital she knows of in the country that has applied surgical camera technology to C-sections.
“We’re using this technology that’s been around but using it in a different way, and that is not the norm across the country,” she said. “I’m hoping that there will be more hospitals and labor and delivery units that opt to put this in place. I think their patients will be asking for it.”
Nearly 32% of all births in the United States are done by C-section, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Since the majority of C-sections are not expected, it can often feel startling for expectant parents to go from the comfort of the labor and delivery room to the sterility of the operating room, according to Wolfe.
She said the goal of giving parents the option to watch the delivery is to “flip the script” and make it a more personal experience.
“Anytime you have something unplanned, especially around something as momentous as having your child, you’re going to have some trepidation about, ‘Oh, now I need a C-section. Now I need surgery. What does that mean?'” Wolfe said. “Now you’re given an option where you can actually … watch the process, something previously you were unable to do because the technology wasn’t in place.”
The medical team is able to move the monitor so that parents can watch what they want of the delivery, as was the case during Koop’s C-section.
“I did not want to see the initial incision and getting down to the baby, so I just saw those parts that I thought were important,” Koop said, adding that the monitor’s location and flexibility also gave her husband the chance to stay by her side while choosing what he wanted to see.
“I think it can be kind of scary for people, what am I going to see, but the team does an amazing job of kind of blocking things that you don’t need to see and really focusing on that little baby,” she said. “I just thought it made such a difference in my delivery. I didn’t miss a thing.”
(WASHINGTON) — In advance of the rollout of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline’s new three-digit number, legislators have announced a bill to help fund its implementation.
The bill includes federal funding and guidance for states and localities preparing for the July launch, including mental health block grants and $100 million to partner with cities on mobile crisis response teams to help stabilize people in need. It would also increase the amount of federal funding for the Lifeline, which runs a national backup network to receive calls that can’t be picked up at the state and local levels, and provide $10 million for an awareness campaign about the new 988 number — modeled after 911.
The 24-hour hotline has been in service since 2005 and has received more than 20 million calls.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration expects calls to the Lifeline to more than double during the first full year of the three-digit number, and advocates say the Lifeline is underfunded and understaffed to meet the expected increase in call volume.
Despite the effort to improve the system, advocates say, people in crisis could face delays — or might not be able to reach a counselor at all without more funding.
Rep. Tony Cárdenas, D-Calif., announced the funding bill to address that issue at a press conference Thursday.
“[My bill] is to go ahead and move 988 in the right direction — to move 988 in a direction where we’re going to have local states and local city councils and local county supervisors and mayors and governors and legislators, state legislators, to start to pass funding bills,” Cárdenas told ABC News.
The 988 Implementation Act is also co-sponsored by Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del., Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., Rep. Grace Napolitano, D-Calif., Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., and Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md, Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass.
Hannah Wesolowski, chief advocacy officer for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said about 80% of calls to the Lifeline can be de-escalated over the phone. Of the 20% that can’t, she said, about 70% can be resolved with the help of mobile crisis response teams. The rest can go to crisis stabilization centers, after which a majority can be discharged back into the community without needing to be hospitalized.
“Mobile crisis teams, which provide an alternative to law enforcement, are so critical. Relying on law enforcement is just an ineffective way to respond to [mental health] crises. That’s not the job law enforcement signed up for, nor should we be asking them to do that,” Wesolowski said.
She added that people experiencing a mental health crisis are often taken to emergency departments that don’t specialize in psychiatric care.
“So this would really help provide capital grants and other capacity resources to build crisis receiving and stabilization facilities that really serve as kind of a psychiatric emergency room that provides that short-term stabilization, [and] connections to additional care — whether that’s helping somebody return to the community, or in some cases, might be inpatient hospitalization,” Wesolowski said. “Overwhelmingly, when this whole continuum is availabl, we can avoid a lot of that hospitalization, incarceration, homelessness and other negative outcomes that we often see with our current crisis response system.”
Taun Hall, whose son Miles was shot and killed in 2019 at age 23 while experiencing a mental health crisis in California, also spoke at the press conference. She said her family tried to get Miles help for two years, but it was “almost impossible.”
“Getting help is a reactive process and leads to criminalization, especially when police are involved and responsible for their care. This is exactly what happened to our family. I called 911 to get Miles help while he was experiencing a mental health emergency and Miles was criminalized for his Black skin,” Hall said. “He was shot and killed in the community where he lived and grew up for 18 years.”
“Everyone knows you dial 911,” Moulton said. “The same needs to be true for anyone, if you wake up in the middle of the night and you or a loved one is experiencing a mental health emergency. That’s the difference that this bill is going to make.”
Moulton, who introduced the legislation to designate 988 as the Lifeline number back in 2020, said it will save lives.
“We’ll save thousands, but we don’t want to miss a single one,” Moulton said. “We have to make sure that everybody is geared up. So no matter where you are, no matter what phone you have access to, you can get the help that you need, 24/7.”
(NEW YORK) — While many people know a trip to the hairdresser can save you from a bad hair day, it could also save your life.
That was the case for an Illinois-based woman, Mary Rahilly, who had an appointment for a cut and color. Her hairstylist, Sharon Lupo, who she visits regularly, noticed something new and unusual on her scalp — and suggested that she visit a dermatologist.
“It was almost a discolored spot. I knew I had to tell her,” Lupo told Good Morning America.
After making a rush appointment, Rahilly’s doctor could almost immediately tell it was a form of cancer and proceeded to run a biopsy, which confirmed it.
The scalp is a common place for skin cancer, Dr. Ramona Beshad, assistant professor of dermatology at St. Louis University, told GMA.
“It’s a place where skin cancers tend to be diagnosed late, because oftentimes they’re covered by hair and not easy to see,” she said.
In Rahilly’s case, Lupo was able to get a good look at what was hiding underneath her client’s hair.
Luckily, Rahilly got the squamous cell on her scalp removed before it spread.
“She knows I’m grateful and that, you know, she’s an awesome person. She is,” Rahilly said. Lupo chimed in, sharing that Rahilly called her a hero.
Skin cancer is one of the most common cancers in the United States, with one in five Americans developing it by the age of 70, according to the Skin Cancer Foundation.
Because hairstylists can play an integral role in spotting skin cancer in this often-hidden area, Beshad started Stylists Against Skin Cancer, a program to teach cosmetology students how to properly identify these cancers.
There’s also another program Sty-Lives, short for Styling Hair and Saving Lives, that is led by two Ontario-based medical students and has launched across Canada with the Save Your Skin Foundation. The foundation trains hairdressers to spot lesions on the ears, faces and scalps of their clients.
Dr. Whitney Bowe, a dermatologist, shared some of her tips and best practices for spotting skin cancer with GMA.
“I highly recommend doing a self exam every month and looking at your skin closely from head to toe,” she said.
Bowe also recommends recruiting a friend or loved one to look at places you can’t see, such as behind your ears, your back and the back of your neck as well as the legs.
When looking for skin cancer, Bowe says to look at:
A- Asymmetry
B- Border
C- Color
D- Diameter
E- Evolution
When it comes to the summer months, skin cancer prevention is key, according to Bowe.
She suggests broad spectrum sunscreen and re-applying every two hours to dry skin or more often if you are wet, swimming or sweating.
“But sunscreen is not enough,” she added. “Also wear sun protective fabric, a broad rimmed hat, sunglasses, and seek shade especially when the sun is at its peak.”
(ATLANTA) — Experts fear that COVID-19 cases in the United States will rise in the next few weeks as the new BA.2 variant continues to spread.
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows BA.2, which is a subvariant of omicron, has been tripling in prevalence every two weeks.
As of the week ending March 11, BA.2 makes up 23.1% of all COVID cases in the U.S. compared to 7.1% of all cases the week ending Feb. 26, according to the CDC.
Although the original omicron variant still makes up the majority of America’s COVID infections, its prevalence has dropped over the same period, from 74.5% to 66.1%.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said given the growing prevalence of BA.2, he expects cases will increase within the next month.
“I would expect that we might see an uptick in cases here in the United States because, only a week or so ago, the CDC came out with their modification of the metrics for what would be recommended for masking indoors, and much of the country right now is in that zone, where masking indoors is not required,” Fauci told ABC affiliate KGTV Wednesday.
Fauci added that he believes BA.2 will become the dominant variant in the country, surpassing the original omicron variant.
He noted several European countries — such as Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom — have reported a spike in COVID-19 over the last couple of weeks.
In the U.K., 93,943 cases were recorded Wednesday, according to Johns Hopkins University, more than double the 45,303 recorded two weeks earlier.
“It has a transmission advantage over BA.1,” Fauci said. “Namely, it is more likely to transmit, which is the reason why we’re seeing the uptick in cases in the UK and in the European countries, that have pulled back a bit on their mitigation.”
Last month, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced any remaining COVID-19 measures in England would be dropped so the country could move into a new phase of the pandemic, which he described as “living with COVID.”
Several European countries followed suit, as did the U.S., which eased masking guidance for 70% of the country, including for schools.
Fauci said he is encouraged that BA.2 does not appear to cause more severe disease, but warned if the U.S. experiences another COVID wave, Americans must be willing to readopt mitigation measures.
“We have to be careful that if we do see a surge as a result of that, that we’re flexible enough to reinstitute the kinds of interventions that could be necessary to stop an additional surge,” he said. “I hope that doesn’t happen. But we’ll just have to wait and see.”
ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration will announce new building ventilation standards for schools and businesses on Thursday — a welcome step for experts who feel the U.S. has long been behind the curve on using air filtration as a valuable tool to fight COVID-19.
The new guidance, the latest addition to President Joe Biden’s recent COVID-19 plan, is the first time such a standard has been created at the national level, synthesizing expert guidance on how clean air can prevent the spread of illness.
The new recommendations, which will be rolled out by the Environmental Protection Agency, urge all building owners and operators to hit four main steps in the form of a detailed “checklist” to ultimately get more fresh air in.
“It’s a two-page document. It’s written in plain language, very straightforward,” Mary Wall, a senior policy adviser at the White House, told ABC News. “We think this is an action list that really all buildings can draw from.”
The checklist includes tasks that cost money, like hiring an expert in HVAC systems to assess the building or adding extra ventilation to “higher risk areas,” like a school nurses office, but also immediate, low-effort advice like opening windows and doors at opposite sides of a room to allow for “cross ventilation.”
In the next few weeks, the White House will also announce a recognition program, Wall said, which will award buildings for their ventilation systems, similar to LEED certification awards for sustainable buildings.
Experts like Dr. Joseph Allen, director of the Healthy Buildings Program at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, say the new guidance will be a necessary part of the country’s COVID-19 response.
“The thing I think that is most important about this is the White House is using its pulpit to drive home the message that clean air and buildings matter. That sounds simple, but it’s actually long overdue,” said Allen, who advised the White House on the policy and has publicly pushed for greater focus on ventilation since early in the pandemic.
While it could have been helpful over the last two years, this is a particularly good moment to turn attention toward ventilation, Allen said, because it can be “operating all the time, in the background,” even as masking has become a personal choice.
It also comes at a time when Americans are enjoying relaxed coronavirus measures, but cautiously eying a rise in cases in Europe and China from a more transmissible strain of omicron called the BA.2 variant that is expected to soon hit the U.S. to the same effect.
“We should take this reprieve. We’re certainly gonna get another curveball in the future. When, where or what that looks like is undetermined, but we should be ready,” Allen said. “These are improvements we could be making — getting our buildings ready.”
The Biden administration has no way to enforce the recommendations, though some experts sees it as a strong first step.
David Michaels, another adviser on the plan and a former head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, acknowledged that the federal government has no authority over indoor air, but compared this step to how the ban on indoor smoking became widespread in the early 2000s, despite no national laws in place.
“This will push states and cities to issue indoor rules just as they did on tobacco smoke,” said Michaels, who is also a professor at George Washington University.
No new federal funding has been set aside to encourage buildings to upgrade their ventilation.
Wall pointed to existing funding streams, including the $122 billion allocated to schools through the American Rescue Plan for coronavirus relief and money in the infrastructure legislation Biden signed in November, as resources to help pay for improvements.
The White House intends the latest EPA standards to “re-raise this as an important priority,” Wall said, particularly for schools that haven’t yet been able to invest in better ventilation.
“I think that this is something that people haven’t been as focused on, but that it can be very effective in reducing COVID spread,” Wall said.
Proponents of improving the nation’s indoor air quality also point to “decades of benefits that go beyond COVID.”
In schools, better air quality has been shown to impact student test performance in math and reading. It’s also led to reduced asthma attacks and fewer absences, Allen said.
On the business front, studies have shown fewer workers call out sick, higher cognitive function and better productivity. Allen, in his research, estimated the benefit of good air quality to be about $7,000 per person, per year, before COVID.
“We should have been doing this all along. But in terms of why now with COVID, we should be prepared for whatever comes next,” Allen said.
(NEW YORK) — In a digital age, children have access to around-the-clock news coverage of frightened refugees, gunfire and talk of a nuclear attack.
Many American parents are wondering how media coverage of the war in Ukraine may be impacting their children.
“We tend to believe that children are not aware of what’s happening, but in fact they are,” said Dr. Stephenie Howard, a licensed clinical social worker and assistant professor at Norfolk State University.
“They’re always listening. They pick up on bits and pieces of information and they’re left to put the pieces together by themselves, which can be worse,” she added.
Although the events in Ukraine are a continent away, children in the U.S. might experience vicarious trauma, which happens when people are impacted by someone else’s adversity even if they do not directly experience it themselves. Children may also misinterpret public crises often in ways that are unexpected.
“Kids will hear about these things. Their fears and worries may be distortions of the reality … and when there’s this much coverage, they might think there’s a war in their own city,” Dr. David Schonfeld, director of the National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, told Good Morning America.
Below are five steps parents can take to help children navigate turbulent times.
1. Initiate the conversation.
Experts agree that families should feel empowered to ask about their child’s understanding of an event, correct misinformation and provide reassurance.
Schonfeld, who recently published an article for the American Academy of Pediatrics on this subject, recommends starting the conversation as soon as children are old enough to talk.
“It may very well be a one- or two-minute conversation with a 6-year-old where you say, ‘Did you hear anything about the fact that in the country far away from here called Ukraine, there’s a war?” Schonfeld said.
Added Dr. Micki Burns, a licensed psychologist and chief clinical officer at Judi’s House, an organization that provides grief counseling for children and families: “Come into that conversation and allow your child to drive the direction that it goes in… and allow them to teach us what’s going to be most helpful to them.”
When talking to your child, focus on active listening. There is often a tendency to try to “fix” scary situations, but it is important to avoid providing false promises. Give developmentally appropriate answers to their questions and remind them that you will help keep them safe.
2. Monitor for signs of stress or anxiety.
Children at different ages may process scary events on the news in different ways. Some may show changes in appetite, sleeping habits, or seem withdrawn. Dr. Kimberly Clinebell, a child and adolescent psychiatrist with University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Western Psychiatric Hospital, adds that young child may even regress.
If you notice concerning changes in your child’s behavior, talk to their pediatrician as they can often help explore these behaviors and connect your child to mental health providers.
3. Check in with your own emotional well-being.
“The first thing for all parents in all situations is to make sure that you’re taking care of yourself. I know it’s such a cliché but … put the oxygen mask on yourself first before you go to help your children,” said Burns.
Self-care can look like many things, like taking a break from news coverage.
“I just tell people if you’re watching, viewing, listening to or reading [the news] and you’re not feeling reassured and you’re not learning practical new information, then unplug,” said Schonfeld.
Reducing exposure to graphic videos and images can be protective for both you and your child.
4. Model compassionate behavior.
It is also critical for parents to recognize that wartime can bring about misunderstandings and prejudices surrounding different groups of people. Many Americans have family in Russia and Ukraine.
“There’s a tendency for us to say things which are really discriminatory because we think it’s safe among friends. But we really don’t know all of the history of all of our friends and acquaintances,” said Schonfeld.
He recommends modeling kind words, especially during tense times.
5. Identify practical ways to help with the crisis abroad.
Lastly, watching conflict unfold on TV can make kids feel helpless.
“Try to think of ways to make a positive impact in the world, whether that’s with Ukraine or some other way that they feel like their passions and their skills could be put to good use,” said Dr. Maria Rahmandar, an adolescent medicine professor at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.
Sophia Gauthier, MD, is a pediatric resident physician at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia as well as a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit.
(NEW YORK) — Amid growing concerns about the impact of the pandemic on Americans’ mental health, and the rollout of a new three-digit number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline this summer, advocates say local call centers across the nation remain underfunded and understaffed for an expected increase in call volume.
Despite the effort to improve the system, they say, people in crisis could face delays — or might not be able to reach a counselor at all.
On July 16, the Lifeline will transition from its current 10-digit hotline number to the much easier to remember 988, modeled after the 911 emergency number for police and fire.
The 24-hour hotline has been in service since 2005, and in that time has received more than 20 million calls from people looking for help.
“What we’re building on is a proven, existing service that’s shown to reduce emotional distress and suicidality,” Lifeline Executive Director Dr. John Draper told ABC News. “It’s essentially scaling up that service to make sure that we’re going to be able to reach more people and serve them more effectively.”
When possible, calls are received by the nearest crisis center, but if a local center cannot handle them, they get routed to one of several national backup centers that receive federal funding to maintain staffing.
“And the more that happens, the longer people wait. And that’s something you don’t want for people in crisis,” Draper said is the case when there’s not enough money.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), which allocates federal funding for the program, estimates a 25% increase in callers to the Lifeline for fiscal year 2022. The 988 number will only be operational for the final three months of that period.
During the first full year of 988 implementation, FY2023, SAMHSA estimates calls received will reach 7.6 million, which is more than double the most recently recorded metrics.
This year, the federal government allocated $282 million through SAMHSA for 988 implementation, an amount stakeholders call “unprecedented.”
The organization has two major goals for supporting the Lifeline crisis center network, according to John Palmieri, acting lead for the 988 and behavioral health crisis team at SAMHSA.
“One of them is making sure that there is that safety-net infrastructure that exists at the national level, so that when individuals call, if for some reason those calls aren’t able to be received at the local level, that there’s a national safety net to support those individuals in crisis,” Palmieri said.
A total of $177 million dollars is dedicated to fund the backup centers with the other $105 million going to states and territories to support local crisis centers.
“We really feel like from the perspective of the individual in crisis, it really is best for them to be connected at the local level to the degree possible, to be better integrated with the local system of care, to provide wraparound services and so on,” Palmieri said.
An internal 2021 survey of local crisis centers in the Lifeline network found that only about 43% were explicitly funded to answer Lifeline calls, according to Draper.
“They were simply volunteering their services because their organization, their agency’s mission, aligned with ours,” Draper said. “And so they would basically borrow staff from other lines of business, who were dedicated to other lines of business, to help answer calls that were unfunded. So that’s the steep hill that we have to climb.”
Since its inception, the Lifeline network has been underfunded, according to Draper. With the transition to a three-digit number looming, even more funding is needed to ensure centers are adequately staffed to accommodate the expected increase in callers.
As it stands, Draper says about 20% of calls that should be answered at the local level are currently being picked up through the national backup network. Even with the national backup network, a SAMHSA report shows that at its current capacity, the Lifeline can only address approximately 85 percent of calls.
Because local crisis centers are funded at the state level, resource allocation and sustainability of funding are inconsistent across state lines.
The National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP) has been tracking state level legislation around the implementation of 988.
“States are all over the map on this,” said Kitty Purington, senior program director for NASHP. “And I think there are many states who have not really grappled with what sustainability looks like going forward.”
When Congress enacted legislation to designate 988 as the new Lifeline number in 2020, that law included a provision allowing states to place a tax on cell phone bills to support the service. Similar taxes are used to support emergency medical and law enforcement services through 911 call centers.
Few states have enacted legislation to impose these taxes so far. A handful of others have implemented exploratory committees or provided some funding for the rollout of the new number.
“There’s going to be some time to build this out,” Purington said. “And potentially, it’s going to be something that states are going to be doing for years.”
She compared the transition to the implementation of emergency services through 911 call centers.
“People say [911] took like 60 years to really get its footing,” Purington said. “It took decades for people to really understand and have 911 be really the go-to number. And so, this is not going to be like flipping a switch.”
Stakeholders in the mental health field remain optimistic, despite the underfunding of the program. Laurel Stine, senior vice president of public policy at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, said, “ultimately, 988 is more than just a number.”
“It is an opportunity to really reimagine the behavioral health crisis response system,” Stine said.
Stine says the vision of an ideal 988 system would include well-resourced crisis centers across the country, the ability to provide follow-up care as needed, mobile mental health crisis response teams and crisis stabilization centers.
“We understand fully that a lot has to occur,” Stine said. “There are states that are well equipped, and have mobile crisis teams and are well-resourced and there’s others that are not. And so the local level of readiness is varied.”
The overall need is pressing.
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy recently sounded the alarm to lawmakers over an increase in suicide attempts among young people during the the pandemic.
And President Joe Biden called mental health a priority in his State of Union address earlier this month, saying, “let’s get all Americans the mental health services they need.”
If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one, help is available. Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 [TALK] for free, confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
