Blog Posts -- Research & Reports

A new report finds that children whose parents or caregivers misuse alcohol or have a substance abuse problem face an increased risk of medical and behavioral problems. The study calls for pediatricians to take an active role in assessing a child’s risk and to support the family to get the help they need. Experts have known that children whose parents or caregivers misuse alcohol or use, produce or distribute drugs face an increased risk of medical and behavioral problems. In the new...

A new report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) provides state-by-state results on adolescents (ages 12-17) who experienced at least one major depressive episode in the past year. Based on combined 2013 and 2014 data, the report shows the prevalence of major depressive episodes among adolescents residing in various states – from a high of 14.6 percent (annual average) in Oregon to a low of 8.7 percent (annual average) in the District of Columbia.

Bullying and cyberbullying are major risk factors for teen suicide. And both the bullies and their victims are at risk. That's according to a report from the American Academy of Pediatrics that urges pediatricians and family doctors to routinely screen teenagers for suicide risks. "Pediatricians need to be aware of the problem overall," says Benjamin Shain , a child and adolescent psychiatrist and lead author of the report published online Monday in the journalPediatrics. "They should be...

Antidepressants don’t work for everyone, and having a history of abuse during childhood may signal a low likelihood that the drugs will improve an adult’s symptoms of major depression, a recent study suggests. While there are few reliable predictors of which people will respond to specific antidepressants, lots of previous research links a history of trauma early in life with how well people tend to do on these drugs, researchers note in the journal Translational Psychiatry. "The presence of...

New research shows that certain family, social, and community supports may boost a child’s chances of thriving in the face of adversity. According to researchers, people who experience four or more adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), such as economic hardship, exposure to violence, or the death of a loved one, are more likely to have lasting physical and mental health problems. But a new research abstract presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies 2016 Meeting identifies several...

Public health researchers cheered an encouraging trend recently : Childhood obesity rates, which rose steadily through the 1980s and 1990s, seemed to have plateaued in the 2000s. But new research suggests a different, troubling problem lurking behind that plateau — a steep rise in the rates of severe obesity, particularly among older and minority children. The fraction of adolescents with severe obesity — a body mass index of 40 or greater — has more than doubled from 0.9 percent in 1999 to...

Most mental health conditions emerge in childhood and adolescence (Kessler and Wang, 2008; IOM and NRC, 2009), and many develop in the context of the same risk factors as physical disease (Mistry et al., 2012; Shonkoff et al., 2009). Similarly, many...

This evaluation  from the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General examines the quality of care provided to children receiving second-generation antipsychotics that were paid for by Medicaid.  ...

  In recent years, there has been a surge  of research into early brain development. Neuroimaging technologies, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), provide increased insight about how the brain develops and how early experiences affect...

SaintA has been committed to implementing the Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics TM (NMT TM ) since 2008, working closely with  Dr. Bruce Perry and the ChildTrauma Academy staff, as well as its NMT TM partners and colleagues. Our journey...

Why We Should Assess for ACEs in kids in the child welfare system.  I don't know exactly how old this brief from the Administration on Children and Families from HHS is but the graphs say it all.  However I will add a few points:   1....

SUNDAY, April 26, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- The number of U.S. infants admitted to neonatal intensive care units to treat symptoms of drug withdrawal has nearly quadrupled since 2004, researchers report. Neonatal abstinence syndrome -- a...