closer look
Opinion: Harm reduction is at risk of becoming a fad
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
We need harm reduction, Alexandra Plante of the National Council for Mental Wellbeing asserts in a STAT First Opinion. But we can't let it fall victim to rising oversimplified popularity that doesn't account for the complexities of substance use disorder. To understand her point, she cites some history. A century ago, there were "alcohol asylums" in the U.S. that overstated impressive recovery rates, breeding skepticism about addiction treatment. She connects this hype to current policies criminalizing substance use.
Today, we might applaud overdose prevention centers that immediately intervene in crisis situations, but these standalone remedies remain neither a cure nor treatment for substance use disorder. "The problem with fads, however, is that they are short-lived, and the widespread support is fleeting," she writes. "The substance use challenges we face are anything but fleeting and require sustainable, long-term investments in harm reduction, treatment, and recovery support services in tandem." Read more.
health inequity
At any PSA level, Black men more likely to have prostate cancer
Here's a glaring disparity: Black men in the U.S. are 80% more likely to develop prostate cancer and 220% more likely to die from it than white men. That would argue for earlier screening with the prostate‐specific antigen test known as PSA, but people worry about the risk of over-diagnosis. Now a study of more than 280,000 men who received care from the VA health system has found that at any PSA level — early or late — Black men are more likely to have prostate cancer than white men.
The Black veterans were 50% more likely than white veterans to be diagnosed with prostate cancer after a first biopsy. And before biopsy, Black veterans with a PSA of 4.0 ng/mL had an equivalent risk of prostate cancer as white veterans with a PSA of 13.4 ng/mL. The difference was even larger for younger Black men. "Our findings may indicate a need for PSA biopsy thresholds to be informed by a better understanding of patient risk factors," the authors write.
children
When guns kill kids, intimate partner violence frequently plays a role
Half of homicides in children from 2003 through 2020 were caused by guns. Of that number, 12% were connected to intimate partner violence, a new analysis in Pediatrics says today. By far, most of the kids under 18 who died were, to use the researchers' term, "corollary victims" of violence occurring around them, but 14% of these deaths were perpetrated by a teen's current or former dating partner.
These deaths were typically precipitated by conflict or crises, and two-thirds of them happened at the same time as the perpetrator's suicide. In more than half of these child deaths, an adult also died; 94% of those who died were their mothers, often after a relationship had just ended. "These findings show the safety of the mother is closely linked to that of her children, underscoring the importance of taking the needs of both adult victims and their children into consideration when assessing risk," the authors write.
No comments