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It’s tough to be a teenager. Hormones kick in, peer pressures escalate and academic expectations loom large. Kids become more aware of their environment in the teen years — down the block and online. The whole mix of changes can increase stress, anxiety and the risk of depression among all teens, research has long shown.

But a recent study published in the journal Pediatrics suggests many more teenage girls in the U.S. may be experiencing major depressive episodes at this age than boys. And the numbers of teens affected took a particularly big jump after 2011, the scientists note, suggesting that the increasing dependence on social media by this age group may be exacerbating the problem.

Psychiatrist Ramin Mojtabai and colleagues at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health wanted to know whether rates of depression among teens had increased over the past decade. They analyzed federal data from interviews with more than 172,000 adolescents. Between 2005 and 2014, the scientists found, rates of depression went up significantly — if extrapolated to all U.S. teens it would work out to about a half million more depressed teens. What’s more, three-fourths of those depressed teens in the study were girls.

The findings are just the latest in a steady stream of research showing that women of all ages experience higher rates of depression compared to men, says psychologist and author Catherine Steiner-Adair. And no wonder, she says — despite gains in employment, education and salary, women and girls are still “continually bombarded by media messages, dominant culture, humor and even political figures about how they look — no matter how smart, gifted, or passionate they are.”

Today’s constant online connections — via texting, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, — can exacerbate that harsh focus on looks and other judgments from peers, she says. The uptick in teen depression Mojtabai found after 2011 could be evidence of that.

Read more on NPR.org.

The San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) recognizes that trauma and toxic stress are critical public health concerns, with detrimental effects on individuals, agencies and across generations. But with 9,000 employees serving a diverse city with almost a million residents, making sustainable change is a daunting task. In their Trauma-Informed Systems (TIS) initiative (pdf), SFDPH has used multiple strategies to bring their entire organization – and their community partners – into alignment with principles of a trauma-informed public health approach.

In order to promote a shared culture and common language, SFDPH developed core principles and competencies for a trauma-informed approach and a foundational training curriculum. They made training mandatory for all employees, developed a trauma champions learning community, trained trainers, and host twice-monthly master’s training sessions. They increased the likelihood that training will lead to change by using a “commitment to change” process, where participants commit to a specific action based on what they’ve learned – and then following up to see if it actually happened. SFDPH took another step towards alignment by re-examining and re-tooling related organizational processes, including the Black and African American Health Initiative, ongoing cultural humility training, ongoing staff development efforts, and a workforce satisfaction survey.

And they created alignment with community partners by using the same principles in training for city departments and agencies throughout the San Francisco area, including schools, juvenile justice, human services, early child development services, family violence prevention programs, and others.

Read more on SAMHSA.gov.

WomanSpace Philadelphia is a residential treatment program for dually-diagnosed, chronically homeless women. The ten-bed facility includes services addressing drug and alcohol addiction, mental illness recovery, life skills, and parenting skills. Individual and group therapy is provided in an intimate home-like setting, with the ultimate objective being reintegration after a 9- to 12-month treatment stay.

A program of Resources for Human Development, WomanSpace Philadelphia is also part of Philadelphia’s Journey of Hope Project, established in 2007 to help people with a history of chronic homelessness and co-occurring disorders. Through Journey of Hope, WomanSpace residents obtain apartments in the community after successful completion of treatment. They are also connected to outpatient (OP) or intensive outpatient (IOP) continuing care at treatment organizations located close to their new apartments.

A recent NIATx change project at WomanSpace Philadelphia focused on promoting residents’ stability post-discharge from the program. The specific change project aim was to increase the number of residents who attended their intake session for outpatient or intensive outpatient services within 14 days of discharge from WomanSpace.

At the start of the change project, the follow-up to continuing care was 67.7%.

Their PDSA Cycle for the WomanSpace change team included making discharge plans weeks in advance and beginning the outpatient program immediately upon discharge. Residents attended intake at the new outpatient treatment provider in the morning, then returned to WomanSpace to attend their transition ceremony.

With this change, the follow-up to continuing care rate improved to 100%. 

Read more on NIATX.net.

Older adults who live in poor and violent urban neighborhoods are at greater risk for depression, a study by researchers from UC Davis, the University of Minnesota and other institutions published in the journal Health & Place has found.

“Given the shift towards an aging population and the growing rates of depression among older adults, understanding the factors that contribute to depression is critical,” said Spruha Joshi, a doctoral student in epidemiology at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and first author on the paper. Neighborhoods in which older adults live are an important factor influencing depression and overall mental health, she said.

“We wanted to investigate the total effect poverty has on older adult depression, but also look at particular characteristics that might explain that relationship,” said Magdalena Cerdá, associate professor in the UC Davis Health Department of Emergency Medicine and senior author. “Specifically, what is it about poor neighborhoods that make people depressed? This study really highlights the role violence plays in affecting mental health.”

While previous studies revealed a link between poverty and depression, few have focused exclusively on older adults. In addition, previous efforts had not addressed the many conditions in poor neighborhoods that could contribute to older adult depression. “Older adults tend to be less mobile and more dependent on the amenities, services and sources of social support in the neighborhoods where they live,” Joshi said.

For the study, the researchers queried data from the New York City Neighborhood and Mental Health in the Elderly Study II (NYCNAMES II), a three-year study of elderly residents in the nation’s most populous city. Depression was measured using the nine-question Patient Health Questionnaire.

The team looked at several neighborhood factors that might contribute to depression, such as high homicide rates, poor perception of safety, pedestrian and bicyclist injuries, green space, social cohesion and walkability. The study sample was 61 percent female and 47 percent non-Hispanic white. In addition, 60 percent of respondents had incomes below $40,000. While many factors were examined, violence was the only neighborhood characteristic that substantially contributed to depression in older adults in impoverished, urban communities.

Read more on MedicalNewsToday.com. Read the abstract of the study.

National Native HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NNHAAD) is a national mobilization effort designed to encourage Natives (American Indians, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians) across the United States and Territorial Areas to get educated, get tested, get involved in prevention and get treated for HIV and AIDS. The 2017 theme is “Unity in CommUnity, Stand Strong to Prevent HIV”.

NNHAAD was founded in 2007 by three collaborating agencies whom at the time were called the National Native Capacity Building Assistance (CBA) Network, which included Commitment to Action for 7th-Generation Awareness & Educations (CA7AE), Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc. (ITCA), and National Native American AIDS Prevention Center (NNAAPC). The three network agencies were funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to provide capacity building assistance to Native organizations, tribes, state health departments and any other organization serving Native populations. Since the founding of NNHAAD, the collaborative partnership has grown to include Albuquerque Area Indian Health Board, Inc., Begay Consulting, Center for Prevention and Wellness, Council Oaks Training and Evaluation, Inc., ETR’s Community Impact Solutions Project, Florida Department of Health – HIV Section, Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Health Board, Northwest Portland Indian Health Board, as well as a twelve member materials review committee to review all products developed for NNHAAD.

Read more about NNHAAD.

Public health practitioners, researchers, and community-based service providers are invited to submit abstracts for the National Indian Health Board (NIHB) 2017 National Tribal Public Health Summit, taking place June 6-8, 2017 in Anchorage, Alaska. Deadline to submit abstracts is March 17, 2017.

NIHB encourages presentations highlighting evidenced-based, best, wise, or promising practices developed in and for American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities. NIHB is particularly interested in presentations that provide tools along with information and research, so that participants may leave with the tools they need to make the knowledge they gain actionable. NIHB is also looking for presentations highlighting the various social determinants of health (i.e. socioeconomic status, access to education and employment, the physical environment, etc.) as they pertain to the issues discussed. This year, NIHB has two new conference tracks— one on environmental health and climate change, and the other dedicated to public health issues specific to Native Youth. This year’s summit emphasizes sustaining public health as a national priority, so consider topics and content that will focus on key skills related to this theme within one of the five summit tracks – (1) Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, (2) Public Health Policy, Infrastructure and Capacity, (3) Substance Misuse and Behavioral Health, (4) Climate Change and Environmental Health, (5) Empowering Youth Wellness.

Read more about the call for proposals.