1. Mental Health
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Commencement of CARE Court in Los Angeles Today: Gov. Gavin Newsom’s mental health program known as CARE Court begins in Los Angeles County on Friday. The controversial program will allow family members to ask a judge to step in with a treatment plan for certain loved ones living with severe and untreated mental illness. Read more from the Los Angeles Times, LAist, Los Angeles Daily News and Time.

The New York Times: Record High in U.S. Firearm Suicide Rates
The rate of suicides involving guns in the United States has reached the highest level since officials began tracking it more than 50 years ago, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The rate increased by more than 10 percent in 2022 compared with 2019, and in some racial and ethnic groups, the rise was significantly steeper, especially among Native Americans. Overall, about 27,000 of 50,000 suicides were carried out by gun in 2022. (Baumgaertner, 11/30)

Los Angeles Times: Escalating Teen Suicide Rates Suggest School Policies Could Exacerbate the Issue
In the absence of meaningful access to care, an old superstition has taken root: that talking about suicide will cause kids in crisis to kill themselves. (Sharp, 11/30)

Minnesota Public Radio: 660 Children Assisted by Children's Minnesota in the Inaugural Year of the Inpatient Mental Health Unit
Exactly one year ago, Children’s Minnesota opened it’s first inpatient mental health unit. It serves children as young as six and is one of the few in the state to admit kids with more complex medical conditions — and also one of the few in the country to allow parents or guardians to say overnight with their child. (Wurzer and Kuznetsov, 11/29)

Financial Times: Study Concludes Internet Use Does Not Seem to Have Adverse Effects on Mental Health
A study of more than 2 million people’s internet use found no “smoking gun” for widespread harm to mental health from online activities such as browsing social media and gaming, despite widely claimed concerns that mobile apps can cause depression and anxiety. Researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute, who said their study was the largest of its kind, said they found no evidence to support “popular ideas that certain groups are more at risk” from the technology. (Bradshaw, 11/27)

CNN: Despite Encouraging Declines Among Children and Young Adults, Suicide Deaths in the US Hit a Record High in 2022
More people died from suicide in the United States last year than any other year on record, dating to at least 1941, according to provisional data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At least 49,449 lives were lost due to intentional self-harm in 2022 – more than 14 deaths for every 100,000 people. (McPhillips, 11/29)

2. Children’s Health
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Surge in Whooping Cough Cases Reported in San Diego: San Diego County health officials are urging residents to get vaccinated for pertussis, also known as whooping cough, after the number of cases rose in October from 12 to 57. Read more from the Times of San Diego.

CalMatters: Pharmacies Cease Services as New California Regulations Focus on Flavors in Children's Medication
More than 3,000 California pharmacies earlier this month ended a service they long provided to help the medicine go down, and it’s unclear when they’ll restore it. (Agrawal, 11/29)

3. COVID
4.  

Axios: Biden Administration to Distribute Complimentary COVID Tests to Schools
The Biden administration for the first time will allow all schools to order free COVID-19 tests from the federal government ahead of the holidays, officials told Axios first. Uptake of updated COVID vaccines has been sluggish, making other precautions like timely testing all the more critical as respiratory virus season heats up. (Reed, 11/29)

CIDRAP: Increase in Preterm Births Evident in Birth Records Linked to COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly raised the risk of preterm birth for expectant California mothers, and vaccination likely prevented thousands of them, according to a study today published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. But within 1 year of the arrival of COVID-19 vaccines, that risk virtually disappeared in ZIP codes reporting high vaccination coverage, suggesting vaccination was a key strategy in mitigating preterm birth risks caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection. (Soucheray, 11/28)

4. Life Expectancy
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CNN: Life Expectancy in the US Bounces Back in 2022, Yet Falls Short of Pre-Pandemic Levels
Life expectancy in the United States has started to rebound after historic drops earlier in the Covid-19 pandemic, but it’s far from recovering. In 2022, a 1.1-year increase brought overall life expectancy at birth to 77.5 years, according to provisional data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But that offsets less than half of the 2.4 years of life lost in the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, and life expectancy is still lower than it’s been in about 20 years. (McPhillips, 11/29)

5. Gun Violence
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WTTW: Senate Judiciary Committee Considers Whether Gun Violence Constitutes a Public Health Emergency

As America grapples with gun violence, members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee grappled with whether that violence has become such a crisis that it should be a considered a public health emergency, with emergency room doctors and other health care professionals on the front lines. “In cities like Chicago dealing with the constant drumbeat of gun violence, it has turned these public health officials into battlefield experts,” said U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois), who chairs the committee. “They’ve seen the aftermath of bullets tearing through bone like it’s tissue paper.” With “132 Americans every day dying from gun violence,” he said, “gun violence is a public health epidemic, plain and simple.” (Vinicky, 11/28)

6. Disability Major
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Los Angeles Times: UCLA Introduces a New Major in Disability Studies
That UCLA now has a disability studies major, announced this month, is a sign that “the stigma around disability is shifting,” said Victoria Marks, a professor of choreography and chair of the UCLA program. “More and more of our communities are speaking up.” This fall, San Francisco State became just the second CSU school to inaugurate a disability studies minor. The first was Cal State Northridge last spring. UC schools have fared better, starting with the first disability studies minor in the system at Berkeley in 2003. (Sharp, 11/27)

7. Medical Supplies
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Reuters: Biden Utilizes Cold War-Era Measure to Enhance Medical Supplies
President Joe Biden on Monday invoked a Cold War-era measure to boost investment in U.S. manufacturing of medicines and medical supplies that he has deemed important for national defense. Biden used the first meeting of his supply chain resilience council to boast about his administration efforts to improve supply chains upended by the COVID pandemic and help bring inflation under control, but acknowledged more work needs to be done. “We know that prices are still too high for too many things, that times are still too tough for too many families,” Biden said. “But we’ve made progress." (Holland and Lange, 11/27)

Axios: Biden Aims to Increase Domestic Drug Manufacturing in Response to Shortages
Amid widespread drug shortages, President Biden is outlining a plan to increase domestic production of essential pharmaceuticals — including by leveraging a defense law used to bolster countermeasures against COVID-19. The number of drugs in shortage is higher than at any point in almost a decade, while U.S. drug manufacturers largely depend on overseas suppliers for active pharmaceutical ingredients. (Goldman, 11/28)

8. Physical Therapy
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KFF Health News: Expect Delays in Accessing a Physical Therapist for Back Pain or Knee Issues
At no point along his three-year path to earning a degree in physical therapy has Matthew Lee worried about getting a job. Being able to make a living off that degree? That’s a different question — and the answer is affecting the supply of physical therapists across the nation: The cost of getting trained is out of proportion to the pay. (Kreidler, 11/28)

9. Women’s Health
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ABC News: Women Who Reported Mistreatment During Childbirth Feel Validated by CDC Report, Asserting "Nobody Cared"

"If the CDC has to tell you to respect patients' rights and to respect the medical ethics of autonomy, I think we've really gone off the rails," said Julie Cantor, a women's rights advocate and attorney who is representing Doe. The CDC analysis of a recent survey of 2,400 new mothers includes reported cases of ignored requests for help; being shouted at or scolded; violations of physical privacy; and threats to withhold treatment, or made to accept unwanted treatment. (Dwyer and See, 11/28)