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Substance use among young people was stable at the start of the pandemic, study finds
Substance use among American children aged 10 to 14 has remained relatively stable during the first 6 months of the pandemic, according to the results of a longitudinal study published yesterday in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
The researchers used part of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study cohort and interviewed 7,842 adolescents and their families at 21 sites across the country on three occasions during the lockdown from May to August 2020. The average age of the youth cohort was 12.4 years old.
Overall, 8% reported using substances (eg, alcohol, nicotine, cannabis) in the past 30 days, with 3.4% alcohol and 3.6% nicotine. Of those who reported using substances in the past month, 72% reported using a substance for 1 to 2 days during this period and 76% used only one substance.
In a subset of 1,079 young people comparing a survey from September 2019 to January 2020 with the first pandemic survey in May and June 2020, alcohol consumption decreased from 1.9% to 0.7% while consumption nicotine and prescription drug abuse increased (0% to 1.5% and 0% to 0.7%, respectively). Researchers say these changes could be due to substances that are easier to use in secret during lockdown.
Substance use was more likely among youth who suffered from anxiety, depression or stress, and youth who were extremely stressed by the uncertainty of the pandemic were 2.37 times more likely to use than those who were mildly stressed. The likelihood also increased when families experienced loss of income or material hardship (1.23 times and 1.39 times, respectively).
“Taken together, these results highlight the disproportionate burden of the pandemic on young people and families with pre-existing disadvantages,” said first author William Pelham III, PhD, in a press release from the University of California at San Diego. (UCSD). “Providing material support to families in distress and connecting emotionally distressed youth with support can be important risk mitigation strategies, both today and at similar events in the future. ”
24 august J Adolesc Health to study
August 24 UCSD Press release
Lyme levels appeared to drop in 2020, but cases could have been missed
Although Americans are spending more time outdoors in 2020, there have been fewer emergency room visits related to tick bites and lab tests for Lyme disease, but the trend could be an artifact of COVID- 19, according to a Emerging infectious diseases search letter yesterday.
Researchers gathered data from a survey of 4,103 people, traffic to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website, the national syndromic surveillance program BioSense, and an independent clinical laboratory.
About 50% of survey respondents from July 31 to August 9, 2020 said they spent more time outdoors than in previous years, and the CDC website page describing tick removal received about 25 % more visits (818,167) in 2020 than in 2018 and 2019 However, emergency room visits decreased both in total number and rate per 100,000 visits.
The most significant difference was in May: from May 2017 to 2019, 12,693 emergency room visits took place and the prevalence was 145 per 100,000 visits, but in May 2020, the visits fell to 5,845 and the prevalence increased. decreased to 89 per 100,000 visits. Lyme disease volume testing declined 25% from 2019 to 2020, with test positivity declining slightly, to less than 1%.
“Despite continued exposure, notification of Lyme disease cases for 2020 may be artificially reduced due to changes in healthcare seeking behavior associated with coronavirus disease,” the authors concluded. “The decrease in reporting could also make 2020 inconsistent with long-term trends and changes in the epidemiology of the disease.”
23 august Emerg Infect Dis to study
Study shows racial minorities more likely to be hospitalized with the flu
A study yesterday in JAMA network open sheds light on racial disparities in patients with severe influenza over 10 influenza seasons in the United States, with blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans or Alaska Natives hospitalized and admitted to the care unit intensive (ICU) more often than their white counterparts after adjusting for age.
The cross-sectional study was based on data collected from the Influenza Hospitalization Surveillance Network and included 113,352 patients hospitalized for influenza from 2009 to 2019. The main results of the study were hospitalization, admission to intensive care and death in hospital.
Very few differences in results were seen in patients aged 75 and older, but racial disparities were evident in those aged 64 and under.
People aged 50 to 64 with severe influenza requiring hospitalization were more likely to be black (RR 2.50; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.43-2.57)), and black patients were also more likely to be admitted to the ICU (RR, 2.09; 95% CI, 1.96-2.23). For patients under the age of 50, Native Americans or Alaska Natives were more likely to be hospitalized than their white peers (RR, 1.72; 95% CI, 1.51 to 1.96) and to be admitted to an intensive care unit (RR, 1.84; 95% CI, 1.40-2.42).
Differences in rates of hospitalization, ICU admission, and hospital death by race and ethnicity were greatest among children aged 4 and under, the authors found. “Black, Hispanic, and Asian / Pacific Islander children had 3-4 times more hospital deaths than white children,” they wrote.
24 august JAMA Netw Open to study
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