Recovery Update

Serious mental illness is more common among women than men — but women with serious conditions are often overlooked in psychiatric research, treated less effectively with psychiatric drugs, and face discrimination and stigma by medical professionals who diagnose them and oversee their care.

Oregon is the first state approved to receive expanded federal Medicaid funding for services provided by mental health crisis teams such as Cahoots in Eugene, state and federal officials announced Monday. The new stream of federal money will allow more communities to send trained mental health workers instead of police to incidents that involve non-violent behavioral health emergencies.

Brian Lungren and his family wonder what could have spared him some of the 13 years he spent at Napa State Hospital in treatment for mental illness and serious drug and alcohol addiction. Since Brian, or Bri to his family, was diagnosed as a teenager with schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type, his parents tried everything to save him from a years-long and emotionally painful spiral into drug use, incarceration and homelessness.

Leaders in Vermont health care and directors from four health care organizations gathered on Thursday to discuss rural health care and celebrate receiving $2.72 million in federal grants. While those funds and a spirit of collaboration made panelists optimistic, all were in agreement: Rural health care is in a crisis.

Mark Zuckerberg launched The Facebook at Harvard University in February 2004. Days later, 650 students had made accounts. Today, there are roughly two billion daily active users. Concurrent with Facebook's meteoric expansion has been growing concern over the mental well-being of adolescents and young adults. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control, the suicide rate among 10- to 24-year-olds was stable from 2000 to 2007; it then increased 57% between 2007 and 2017.