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They are the nation’s invisible homeless population, undercounted for years, hiding out in cars and abandoned buildings, in motels and on couches, often trading sex for a place to sleep. And now, for a complex variety of reasons, the number of youth — teens and young adults — living on the street appears to be growing.

San Diego saw a 39 percent jump in homeless youth over the past year. In Atlanta, the number of homeless youth in 2016 was estimated to be nearly triple that of previous years. After a concerted effort to count homeless young people, Seattle’s King County saw its numbers jump more than 700 percent between 2016 and 2017. And the number of homeless, unaccompanied public school students increased one-fifth between 2012 and 2015.

There’s no one reason for the rise in youth homelessness, said Naomi Smoot, executive director of the Coalition for Juvenile Justice. Communities are just starting to get better data on homeless youth, which may be one reason for the increase. Then again, Smoot said, “it’s the drug crisis, it’s the economy, it’s the cost of housing, jobs being scarce. As a result, growing numbers of young people are having to take care of themselves on the street at a very young age.”

Many communities are stepping up their efforts to deal with the problem. The idea is to intervene early, with services targeted toward the particular needs of young people — before homelessness becomes chronic, and it’s much harder to move them off the street.

Read more on MitchellRepublic.com.

New research suggests that poverty itself, rather than unemployment and foreclosures, contributed to the rise in the suicide rate during the Great Recession of 2008 to 2009. These findings were based on an analysis of county-level data from 16 states in the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) from 2005 to 2011. Although poverty rates were found to be strongly associated with suicide death rates among men and women above the age of 20, foreclosure and unemployment rates were not correlated with an increase in suicide independent of poverty.

The authors of this study suggested that unemployment may contribute to the suicide rate by increasing the rate of poverty, and that lack of resources and opportunities in impoverished areas may contribute to suicide risk. They also suggested that their research shows the importance of suicide prevention in communities with high rates of poverty, especially during economic downturns.

Read more on SPRC.org. Read the abstract of the study.

In 2016, social media started a dialogue on Black men’s mental health using the hashtag #YouGoodMan following the disclosure of mental health issues by rapper Kid Cudi. In a post on his Facebook page, Cudi stated he was seeking help to treat his anxiety and depression. Research shows that African Americans often under-utilize therapy compared to White counterparts. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 18.6% of African Americans report living with a mental health condition but only 16.9% report using mental health treatment.

Based on research, we know that there are common barriers to treatment among various racial and ethnic groups. First, there is substantial evidence on mistreatment and misdiagnosis among African Americans. Studies often show that people of color are misdiagnosed with more serious psychological conditions even when they have similar symptoms as Whites. Studies also show that Black men often are socialized or grow up in homes where masculinity is emphasized and men are not encouraged to talk about their feelings or emotions. Although the mental health profession has work to do to address barriers to treatment, there must also be a change in the Black community to foster improved perceptions of mental health services. Another barrier for mental health treatment is the lack of African American therapists. For some individuals, it is important to have a therapist that looks like them. Given therapists are often White, some African Americans may be more likely to avoid treatment. If we have more providers of color, Black men may feel that their plight is better understood and therapists may better understand the dynamics faced by Black men living in the social and political system of America.

Given the importance of mental health on our functioning in society (e.g., relationships, job performance) it is paramount that we identity ways to improve treatment seeking. Some emerging work by scholars at the University of Michigan has used Facebook to understand Black men’s attitudes towards mental health. In their study, participants reported that the Facebook intervention was acceptable and it provided thought provoking content that opened Black men’s eyes to mental health issues. More importantly, the intervention appeared effective and produced lower depression ratings after completion. According to Dr. Daphne Watkins and her co-authors, the intervention appeared to be a welcoming and a nonjudgmental space for Black men. It allowed an opportunity to safely disclose information and have access to culturally sensitive mental health resources. As we move forward to addressing the mental health of Black men, we need to strongly consider incorporating the voices of Black men in research on mental health. This is vital to improving the use of treatment and the lives of Black men in America.

Read more on HuffingtonPost.com.

In 2008, the U.S. House of Representatives established July as Bebe Moore Campbell National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month (NMMHAM). This observance aims to improve access to mental health treatment and services for multicultural communities through increased public awareness. Visit the Center for Integrated Health Solutions’ Health Disparities webpage, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health’s (OMH) website, and the National Alliance for Mental Illness website to learn more and get resources to raise awareness in your community. The National Council offers the Addressing Health Disparities Leadership program on a yearly basis.

OMH will participate in three Twitter chats this month. You can join by following @MinorityHealth:

Minority Mental Health at the Community Level
Wed, July 12, 2-3 pm ET
Co-hosts: @NIMHD
#MinorityMH

HRSA’s Behavioral Health 
Thurs, July 20, 3-4pm ET
Host: @NHSCorps
#BHealthy

Minority Mental Health Disparities
Tues, July 25, 1-2pm ET
Host: @SaludToday 
#SaludTues

If you wish to be involved on social media during the month you could also share minority mental health awareness information, images and graphics with the hashtag #MinorityMentalHealth throughout July.

Visit the NMMHAM Facebook page. Learn about past webinars and events on the NNED NMMHAM page.

In an effort to address high rates of youth suicide, the Anchorage school district is expanding its crisis response team. Made up of more than a dozen staff members, the team helps schools respond to traumatic events in their communities. Their crisis response protocol is based on the PREPaRE model, which was developed by the National Association of School Psychologists to prevent and respond to psychological trauma in schools. After a suicide death, the crisis response team is sent to the school to meet with faculty and students, identify and assist those in distress, and ensure that the necessary mental health services are available. The team tailors its response to the needs of the school, in collaboration with school principals, and works closely with school counselors and mental health staff, bringing in outside psychologists as needed. The Anchorage school district also provides suicide prevention education to middle school students, and has developed a handout for parents that include information on risk factors and warning signs for suicide.

Read more on AlaskaStar.com. Read more about PREPaRE.

Bringing down the rate of HIV infection in one of the United States’ great public health triumphs of the past quarter-century. Now, thanks to the opioid epidemic, some of those hard-won gains may be reversed.

Opioids, as well as being harmful on their own, also increase the risk of HIV outbreaks, as users sometimes inject the drugs using shared, infected syringes. That drove a clustered outbreak in Scott County, Indiana, where then-Governor Mike Pence declared a public health emergency in 2015 because of a spate of new HIV infections.

Hoping to prevent future outbreaks and to drive the HIV infection rate to zero, public health experts held a Capitol Hill summit Wednesday.

The summit’s organizer, the anti-HIV public health advocate amfAR, is rolling out a new website that assembles a wealth of data on the opioid epidemic and its relationship to HIV and other infectious diseases such as hepatitis C (HCV). This includes Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data on the 220 opioid addiction-racked U.S. counties which are most vulnerable to infectious disease outbreaks linked to injection drug use.

The vulnerable counties have high rates of poverty and unemployment, limiting their resources for providing services that can prevent or curtail outbreaks of infectious disease driven by injection drug abuse. Such services include syringe exchange programs and opioid agonist therapy with methadone or buprenorphine. 

Read more on WashingtonPost.com.