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The expanded scope of the Medicaid program has accomplished a great deal in bolstering substance use treatment, but further progress will depend on correcting deficiencies in non‐expansion states and within Medicaid managed care entities, a newly published commentary suggests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an effort to help the public better understand the mental health implications of gaming, an international foundation and a public health nonprofit this month released a white paper, calling it a first‐of‐its‐kind report, that analyzes the potential role of gaming as an innovative solution to the increasing mental health crisis in this country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Last week, ADAW featured a published paper recommending that higher doses of buprenorphine be used in the era of fentanyl (see "ASAM recommends higher doses if needed for treatment with buprenorphine," ADAW, Jan. 7, 2024, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/adaw.33984). The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) did not have time to get back to us by deadline but did respond to our questions for this week's issue. Below are our questions, in italics, followed by their responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nonnative, invasive ants, and especially the red imported fire ant, Solenopsis invicta, are a widespread threat to ground‐nesting wildlife. In this paper I describe a method of controlling fire ants using hot water. The hot water approach was applied to reduce fire ant impacts on sea turtles and ground‐nesting songbirds and to demonstrate its utility in protection of different ground‐nesting species in different habitats. Fire ant controls using hot water provided 90% or greater control, significantly improving survival of both turtle and bird hatchlings, without the use of pesticides. The success of the method and the availability of necessary equipment shows that hot water control of fire ant populations should be considered as a tool for wildlife affected by fire ants and is useful for a wide variety of scenarios where fire ant controls are desirable or necessary. The method does require that 1) wildlife nest locations are known and that 2) nearby fire ant colonies can be found and treated with hot water. The method can be used as a complement to broadcast or bait‐station baiting strategies or as a stand‐alone method for managing fire ants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health care payments continue to evolve and shift away from fee‐for‐service payment systems that typically reward volume and move to value‐based payment (VBP) models that incentivize high‐quality, cost‐effective care. While this is happening more for physical health services, there's more uncertainty about the role of behavioral health. A new white paper aims to tackle that question with information about existing models that have been implemented along with recommendations for federal and state policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intensive outpatient and partial hospitalization or day treatment programs can provide more intensive levels of care with multiple types of therapy, more frequent sessions with mental health professionals, and clinically informed care coordination and case management. This observation on residential treatment is included in a new white paper released this month by the National Association for Behavioral Healthcare (NABH). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Observing that the transition to the 988 National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline offers an opportunity to grow crisis response services along a continuum, the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) last month released a series of 10 technical assistance collaborative papers providing important resources for stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Precision agriculture tools like decision support systems increasingly use machine‐learning algorithms and other types of artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze large quantities of agricultural data and provide recommendations to producers and crop advisers. However, several barriers threaten adoption of these tools. Three papers in the recent Agronomy Journal special section, "Machine Learning in Agriculture," explore this phenomenon and offer solutions and opportunities for building trust in these technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within academia and research, publishing peer‐reviewed articles is expected for dissemination of knowledge and is used as a measure of professional performance. However, few papers have been published on professionals' and graduate students' perceptions of student publication performance, how professionals encourage student publishing, and what types of publication barriers exist for graduate students to publish. In 2019, we emailed a survey to professional and student attendees of the 2013 and 2016 North American Duck symposia as a representative cadre of waterfowl and wildlife biologists. We surveyed 469 professionals and 98 students who attended the symposia. Response rates were 42% and 45% for professionals and students, respectively, and deemed reliable as response rates approached 50%. Fifty percent and 69% of professional respondents indicated they felt frustration motivating their Ph.D. and M.S. students to publish, respectively. Of strategies used to motivate graduate student publishing, 79% of students ranked providing congenial encouragement most effective, while 60% of professionals ranked playing a major role in drafting and editing as most effective. Both professionals and students considered lack of time during and outside work hours as barriers to publishing graduate work. Professionals and students agreed that asking students to sign a contract at time of their initial matriculation may be an effective strategy to publish. Information from this study adds to knowledge on graduate student publishing practices and can be used to improve methods to increase graduate student publication rates in wildlife science and conservation. Similar surveys can be conducted face‐to‐face or remotely at international wildlife and other ecological conferences to broaden application of our results. We encourage students to generate publications from their research by writing separate thesis/dissertation chapters to expedite the publication process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Boldly proclaiming to Congress that it's time to redesign the U.S. mental and behavioral health system, Senate lawmakers last month released a white paper outlining a national strategy to integrate mental health care, enhance delivery within local communities and improve how federal funds and other resources are planned for and allocated to increase the nation's investment through better mental and behavioral health outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the white paper released by Leavitt Partners on April 17, 2018 that urge mental health services providers to implement a measurement-based system where validated symptom rating scales for patient with major depressive disorder (MDD) are performed during visits. It notes that MDD is a serious comorbidity with numerous other medical conditions including hypertension, coronary artery disease and diabetes.

The article focuses on the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper from Jennifer L. Doleac and Anita Mukherjee, which found that greater opioid abuse and opioid-related crime has resulted from laws expanding access to the overdose-rescue drug naloxone. According to the study, there is no evidence that naloxone leads more people to search for fentanyl.

As Scott E. Hadland, M.D., senior author of a dramatic paper published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine puts it, drug use among adolescents is not getting more common — it's at its lowest in almost 50 years. But it's getting more deadly, due to fentanyl. In "The Overdose Crisis among U.S. Adolescents," by Hadland and lead author Joseph Friedman, Ph.D., the problem is laid out clearly: After guns and car crashes, overdose (OD) deaths are now the third leading cause of death among adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking into account the everyday decisions medical professionals have to make about patient care for individuals with mental health and substance use disorder challenges, a white paper has been published that offers much needed guidance to help key stakeholders throughout the behavioral health field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports that the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT) issued a white paper on October 6, 2016 stating social stigma as a major issue in accessing mental health treatment. Topics discussed include the potential of marriage and family therapists in rendering mental health services on issues like depression, anxiety and addiction, the approach of CAMFT in promoting access to mental health treatment, and the formation of a public outreach committee.

The green anole (Anolis carolinensis) has been introduced to the Ogasawara Islands, Japan, and has adversely affected native fauna through predation and competition. To eradicate green anoles, adhesive traps for capture and Teflon™‐sheet fencing to restrict movement have been used, however, their efficiency needs to be improved. Using behavioral experiments, we evaluated colors that would attract green anoles to traps and repel them from fences. We also conducted similar experiments on the native snake‐eyed skink (Cryptoblepharus nigropunctatus) to establish color preferences in an effort to reduce bycatch. We presented choices of 2 out of 6 colored papers (blue, brown, green, purple, red, yellow) to green anoles and 3 colored papers (blue, brown, red) to snake‐eyed skinks to observe which color of paper the animals walked on first. Both species chose blue significantly less often than the other colors (blue was chosen only in 29% of runs). Green anoles demonstrated a preference for brown, whereas snake‐eyed skinks favored red. Our results suggested that using blue Teflon™‐sheet fence might reduce the transborder crossing rate of green anoles. Furthermore, bycatch of native snake‐eyed skinks may be reduced by changing the adhesive trap color to brown, from the currently used red. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At least on paper, the early actions of New York state regulators in establishing a recreational marijuana marketplace are checking multiple boxes in progressive policy: Counteracting the ills of the war on drugs, boosting people of color in obtaining dispensary licenses, even ensuring less environmentally noxious cultivation. What remains much less clear is whether the state's regulations governing adult use of cannabis will be strong enough to deter such harms as greater youth access, and to what degree wider availability of the drug will fuel intensified demand for treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The toxic effects on wildlife of lead ingested from spent hunting ammunition have long posed a conservation challenge for wildlife biologists, managers, and hunters. We got commitments for 7 papers that address the issue of lead hunting ammunition from a number of perspectives. The focus of the symposium and this special section was on lead from spent hunting ammunition, not lead ammunition associated with all forms of shooting. [Extracted from the article]

Even in service settings that accept the use of methadone and buprenorphine as part of treatment, stigmatizing attitudes toward the medications' role can result in treatment decisions that conflict with medical guidelines, suggests a paper based on interviews with providers and drug users. The authors suggest that these views are shaped in part by some providers' mistrust of patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) and their own experiences with non‐agonist paths to recovery. Methadone is a full opioid agonist; buprenorphine is a partial agonist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can bird‐watching improve mental health? A new study has found that people who have nature‐based experiences report better well‐being and lower psychological distress than those who do not, a North Carolina State University news release stated. Bird‐watching in particular yielded promising results, with higher gains in subjective well‐being and more reduction in distress than more generic nature exposure, such as walks. Because bird‐watching is an easily accessible activity, the results are encouraging for college students, who are among those most likely to suffer from mental health problems, the news release indicated. "Bird‐watching is among the most ubiquitous ways that human beings interact with wildlife globally, and college campuses provide a pocket where there's access to that activity even in more urban setting, said Nils Peterson, corresponding author of the study and a professor of forestry and environmental resources at North Carolina State University. The paper, "Birdwatching linked to increased psychological well‐being on college campuses: A pilot‐scale experimental study," was published in Environmental Psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry's (AACAP's) Program Committee has issued a Call for Papers for submission of abstracts of original investigations for consideration in the 2024 Annual Meeting of AACAP, October 14‐19, in Seattle. AACAP is planning for an in‐person meeting in Seattle and as such, will require all presenters to be in‐person in Seattle for their presentation. The Call for Papers deadline is Feb. 15, 2024 (11:59 p.m. EST). For more information, visit https://aacap.confex.com/aacap/2024/cfp.cgi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Greater sage-grouse ( Centrocercus urophasianus; sage-grouse) are highly susceptible to infection with West Nile virus (WNV), with substantial mortality reported in wild populations and in experimentally infected birds. Although sage-grouse are hunted throughout much of their range, they have also recently been considered for protection under the Endangered Species Act. We used blood samples collected on filter-paper strips during the 2006-2010 Oregon, USA, annual sage-grouse hunt to survey for specific WNV-neutralizing antibodies that indicate a previous infection with WNV. During this period, hunters submitted 1,880 blood samples from sage-grouse they harvested. Samples obtained were proportional for all 12 Oregon sage-grouse hunting units. Laboratory testing of 1,839 samples by the WNV epitope-blocking enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (bELISA) followed by plaque reduction neutralization test on bELISA-positive samples yielded 19 (1%) and 1 (0.05%) positive samples, respectively. These data provided early baseline information for future comparisons regarding the prevalence of WNV-specific neutralizing antibodies in sage-grouse in Oregon. This methodology may provide other states where sage-grouse (or other species) populations are hunted and where WNV constitutes a species conservation concern with a viable option to track the relative prevalence of the virus in populations. © 2014 The Wildlife Society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on mental health education to be taught in schools. Topics discussed include white paper "Mental Health Education in New York Schools: Review of Legislative History, Intent and Vision for Implementation" has been issued by Mental Health Association of New York State'; New York state schools teach about alcohol, tobacco and cancer screenings; and the views of Glenn Liebman, MHANYS chief executive officer, on curriculum development.

A policy paper released this month by the American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence (AATOD) focuses on some of the challenges facing opioid treatment programs (OTPs) today. For example, it cites an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine (July 5, 2018) by Michael Botticelli that promotes the idea of methadone being available in primary practice settings for the treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD) (see ADAW, July 16, 2018). "AATOD recommends that this proposal should only be considered after careful, conservative, and thoughtful evaluation," according to the policy paper. "As history and our policies have shown, we do not reject the public health model for increasing access to care for OUD, nor are we ignoring what has been learned about clinical standards of care to treat this illness. It is important to understand, however, the complexity of inducting a new patient into methadone maintenance treatment when developing policies for increasing access to medication assisted treatment." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Untreated mental illness in the Hoosier state comes at a cost of more than $4 billion a year, according to a new Indiana University study, the Daily Journal reported Nov. 1. The research published by the IU Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health found that one in five Indiana residents with mental illness do not receive the treatment they need. Hoosiers who do not receive such treatment are also more likely to experience other chronic health conditions, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease, researchers said. The economic burden of untreated mental illness in Indiana is estimated to be $4.2 billion annually, including $3.3 billion in indirect costs — like unemployment and caregiving — $708.5 million in direct health care costs, and $185.4 million in non‐health care costs. The largest cost attributable to untreated mental illness was premature mortality, at over $1.4 billion. Productivity losses were estimated to cost $885 million each year. "The findings were published Oct. 13 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Researchers worked with the Indiana Behavioral Health Commission to perform their analysis. Through the researchers' work, they developed a framework that allows Indiana to prioritize key areas in mental health services and treatment. The framework also provides Indiana with a baseline for tracking progress toward improvement efforts. The research was used in support of Senate Enrolled Act 1, which passed during the 2023 legislative session. The sweeping legislation will create a new mental health care system in Indiana, fortifying the relatively new 988 crisis response center and hotline with funding for mental health emergencies. The IU study population consisted of more than 6.1 million individuals of whom an estimated 429,000 had untreated mental illness in 2019, according to the research paper. "One of the most significant impacts of this research is that other states can use this framework to understand the financial burden in their state," said Justin Blackburn, Ph.D., associate professor at the Fairbanks School. "There is a scarcity of data on the costs incurred by each state — especially by individuals, families and communities — from untreated mental illnesses in the United States. Policymakers, clinicians and employers need this sort of data to determine how we should allocate our societal resources." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A newly released study suggests that economic impact payments to individuals during the pandemic might have contributed to a surge in opioid overdose deaths, but the results are being portrayed to the public as having a much more dramatic impact. While the study paper from researchers at Bowling Green State University clearly states that the results don't indicate that the payments caused the rise in deaths, language in a news release from the Ohio Attorney General's Office implies a cause‐and‐effect relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Last week's issue featured the announcement of a new payment model for addiction treatment, a combination of capitated and bundled reimbursement that places the treatment provider at risk in the event of repeat admissions. Greg Williams, executive vice president of Facing Addiction with NCADD, described the rationale for the system: Treatment providers should not be paid if patients don't get well. Anne Marie Polak, senior director at Leavitt Partners and in charge of the “Incentivizing Recovery” project the organization is convening, described the basics of how the project works. None of the treatment organizations participated in the project, which resulted in the white paper released Sept. 7 (see ADAW, Sept. 17). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There have been many calls for federal changes to address the opioid epidemic, but one from Beau Kilmer, senior policy researcher and director of the Drug Policy Research Center at the RAND Corporation, released last week is a particularly interesting distillation that doesn't omit pros and cons for each strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integro Technologies is a turnkey machine vision system integrator that leverages evolving technologies to develop specialized quality inspection solutions using vision, robotics, and control systems. The company offers solutions for a wide range of industries, including food and beverage, automotive, pharmaceutical and medical, and consumer products. Recently, Integro worked with a customer who needed a cost‐effective and error‐free solution to inspect large rolls of shrink‐wrapped paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kids playing too many video games and spending too much time online has long concerned parents, but new research has found that these activities may be associated with psychotic experiences, Newsweek reported. Teenagers who spend a lot of time playing video games and on the computer are more likely to have a psychotic experience, according to a new paper in JAMA Psychiatry. These psychotic experiences ranged in extremity from mild suspiciousness and bizarre ideas to delusions and hallucinations. The researchers studied a cohort of 1,226 participants born between 1997 and 1998, and found that those who played more video games, and those who increased then decreased their computer usage, were more likely to have a psychotic experience at some point before the age of 23. Between 5% and 7% of adults have had a psychotic experience at some point, with the first often occurring during teenage years. Psychotic experiences or episodes often involve hallucinations, delusions, disorganized thinking, paranoia and depressive moods. "Understanding the environmental determinants and psychosocial functions of media use during adolescence may help better integrate digital technologies in the prevention and management of [psychotic experiences]," the authors wrote. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 2017 – 2022, law enforcement seizures across the United States of mushrooms containing psilocybin increased dramatically, according to a new study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). The number of law enforcement seizures increased from 402 seizures in 2017 to 1,396 in 2022. In addition, the total weight of psilocybin mushrooms seized by law enforcement increased from 226 kg (498 lbs.) seized in 2017 compared with 844 kg (1,861 lbs.) in 2022. This analysis, published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence, was led by researchers at New York University (NYU) Langone Health in New York City, and the University of Florida, Gainesville. The data used for the analysis were collected through the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program, a grant program aimed at reducing drug trafficking and misuse administered by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Though law enforcement seizures do not necessarily reflect prevalence of use, they represent an indicator of the availability of illicit drugs. "We are in the middle of a rapidly evolving cultural, media, and legal landscape when it comes to psychedelics, and we need data to help shape informed and appropriate public health strategies," said NIDA Director Nora D. Volkow, M.D., in announcing the research publication last week. "Moving forward, we must continue to track data on the availability of psychedelics, patterns in use, and associated health effects to guide efforts in promoting accurate education and reducing potential harms among people who do plan to use psychedelic drugs." Adverse effects of psilocybin mushrooms, such as "bad trips," are marked by "distorted thinking, perceptual changes, putting oneself in physical danger, and intense feelings of fear, anxiety, and confusion," according to NIDA. "People who take psychedelic drugs like psilocybin may also experience short‐term side effects such as raised blood pressure and heart rate, agitation, confusion, vomiting, or nausea, which may be severe and require medical attention." Joseph J. Palamar, Ph.D., M.P.H., associate professor at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, co‐investigator on the NIDA‐funded National Drug Early Warning System (NDEWS), and lead author on the paper, said "Research studies suggesting its effectiveness in treating mental health issues and extensive positive media coverage may lead some people to seek 'shrooms' outside of medical contexts. People who use psilocybin outside of medical supervision need to be educated about risks associated with use." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Annually, one in five childbearing persons in the United States experiences a mental health or substance use disorder before, during or after pregnancy, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) stated in an Aug. 1 news release. To ensure that psychiatrists and mental health clinicians are best positioned to respond to this need, the APA, with support from the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] Foundation, has released a series of educational materials for addressing perinatal mental health in its Psychiatric Toolkit. The toolkit includes eight fact sheets for clinicians and patients, a white paper, and a four‐part webinar series covering this understudied and underserved area of mental health. These materials can be accessed at APA's Perinatal Mental Health website (https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/professional‐interests/women‐s‐mental‐health/maternal‐mental‐health‐toolkit). The white paper calls for revisions to academic and continuing education curricula to improve competency and confidence within the behavioral care workforce for treating this population. It examines the care of vulnerable populations, raising such issues as cultural competency and lack of access. This "Mental Health Needs Assessment in the Management of Perinatal Psychiatric Disorders" is supported by the CDC and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $447,209 funded by the CDC/HHS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary manner by which states have been using Medicaid to expand access to substance use disorder (SUD) treatment may actually be making it more difficult for individuals to receive the services most appropriate to their needs, a newly released paper suggests. Moreover, this preferred strategy in many cases violates the law, authors with the National Health Law Program contend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cougars (Puma concolor) have been recolonizing portions of their historic range over the last few decades and are currently a rare, transient species in the western Great Lakes Region. Anticipatory attitude surveys can identify potential management challenges, stakeholder groups, and conservation and educational priorities for recolonizing cougars. We implemented an anticipatory attitude survey to better understand attitudes towards transient cougars in northern Wisconsin, USA. We distributed the survey in fall and early winter of 2014–15 (n = 423) and 2015–16 (n = 594). We compared attitudes towards transient cougars to attitudes towards other established large carnivores and white‐tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). We also explored factors that may affect human attitudes towards cougars, such as hunter identity, livestock ownership, risk perception, and the loss of a domestic animal to wildlife. Despite the rare, transient status of cougars in Wisconsin, many respondents (mean of 29%) reported to have observed a cougar or sign of one in the wild in Wisconsin. Cougars had a mean favorability score similar to coyotes (Canis latrans) and wolves (Canis lupus) and less than bobcats (Lynx rufus), bear (Ursus americanus), and white‐tailed deer. Comparatively, respondents' risk perception for all categories of risk (i.e., fear for personal safety, the safety of children, and the safety of domestic animals) was higher for cougars than for wolves. Hunter identity and loss of livestock to wildlife were determined by multinomial logistic regression as the most important parameters affecting respondents' favorability towards cougars (ωi = 0.71). Using the 2015–2016 survey data, we found that as cougar risk perception increased, favorability towards cougars decreased similarly for both hunters and non‐hunters. Hunters were less likely to be favorable towards cougars, more likely to be neutral, and equally likely to be unfavorable towards cougars compared to nonhunters. We identify potential management challenges, stakeholder groups (e.g., hunters and those who have experienced loss of livestock to wildlife), and conservation and educational priorities for recolonizing cougars. © 2021 The Wildlife Society. As cougars recolonize portions of their former range, understanding what influences attitudes towards this large carnivore is a critical step in guiding their conservation. Using anticipatory attitude surveys, this paper provides insights into the factors that shape attitudes towards transient cougars prior to recolonization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An over‐reliance on federal block grants and "one‐off" funding initiatives has left the addiction treatment system under‐resourced to respond to an addiction crisis that stands to be at least as deadly as COVID‐19 during the span of the Biden administration, a trio of prominent researchers argue in a newly released policy paper. The authors suggest that the new administration and Congress should prioritize efforts to build on what they consider the most impactful developments in improving access and quality in addiction treatment, such as Medicaid expansion and parity mandates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two recent research papers highlight ongoing deficiencies in the provision of addiction and mental health treatment services to veterans, though the report focusing on depression treatment for patients with substance use disorders (SUDs) suggests that shortcomings in treatment for co‐occurring disorders affect all populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]