Friday, March 05, 2004

The Fiscal Effects of Welfare Reform: State Social Service Spending Before and After Welfare Reform
A May 2003 report, in Adobe Acrobat format, available at the Open Minds web site - " This study addresses how state spending on social services has changed since the advent of welfare reform, using detailed survey data from 16 states and the District of Columbia for state fiscal year 1995, and for fiscal years 1999 and 2000. This allows us to compare spending before Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) was adopted in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 with spending after TANF and PRWORA."  
  

New York Statewide Comprehensive Plan for Mental Health Services
A report, in Adobe Acrobat format, made available through the Open Minds web site - " This Statewide Comprehensive Plan for Mental Health Services 2004-2008 is prepared in compliance with Mental Hygiene Law, Section 5.07. It represents a continuation of the Office of Mental Health’s commitment to insure that New Yorkers have appropriate access to the highest possible quality of mental health care. The Plan represents a departure from previous documents in two important respects. First, it combines future planning directions as required by statute with a description of agency progress during the period 2001-2003. Second, it encompasses a broad range of topics beyond the scope of services to adults with serious mental illness and children with serious emotional disorders."  
  

Managed Care Steps Outside Its Traditional Role to Help Patients & Control Treatment Cost
An article from the November 2003 Open Minds newsletter that is now available at no charge at their web site - "The greatest challenge facing the health care industry today is escalating costs. PacifiCare Behavioral Health (PBH) takes an approach that runs contrary to many in the managed care industry. The company believes in ensuring its members receive both the right type and right amount of care from those clinicians who have demonstrated the best outcomes. This puts the focus on care – not costs. PBH calls this approach Best Care. Paradoxically, the result is lower treatment cost, which ultimately contributes to more manageable rates for the health care purchaser..."  
  

Grassroots campaign seeks to combat disparities
Article in the latest APA Monitor - "APA's Public Policy Office (PPO) launched a coordinated grassroots advocacy campaign with the APA Committee on Ethnic Minority Affairs (CEMA) last fall that focuses on new racial and ethnic health-disparities legislation. What sets this campaign apart is its emphasis on developing relationships with members of Congress, both within and outside the Beltway, in their home states..."  
  

Pavlovian psychopharmacology
Article in the latest APA Monitor - "New research suggests that, in response to internal cues, the body learns to anticipate and counteract some physiological effects of drugs."  
  

Stabilizing Depression in Bipolar Disorder
A new CME unit at Medscape - "Understand the challenges of diagnosing and treating bipolar depression, and review the data on mood stabilizers in its management." [Viewing Medscape resources requires registration, which is free].  
  

Anti-depressants 'cause bleeding' (UK)
BBC story - "Elderly people and those with a history of bleeding disorders have been warned of the risk of taking certain types of anti-depressants. Experts say a group of anti-depressants called selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors or SSRIs may predispose some people to internal bleeding. Writing in the Drug and Therapeutic Bulletin, they said the drugs should not be given to 'at risk' groups. The Department of Health said clearer warnings were being considered." See also the press release from the Drug and Therapeutic Bulletin (in Adobe Acrobat format).  
  

Depression in Women Can Hurt the Heart
HealthDayNews story at Yahoo - "Women with coronary artery disease who show signs of depression are twice as likely to die as women with coronary artery disease who have no symptoms of depression, says a Duke University Medical Center study. ... 'In our study, when we statistically controlled for the effects of age, as well as the beating capacity of the heart, depressive symptoms still remained an independent predictor of mortality,' Duke psychologist Anastasia Georgiades says in a prepared statement. 'The key question that still remains to be answered is whether or not depression actually can lead to worse outcomes, or whether depression is an indicator, or marker, for some other risk factor,' Georgiades says."  
  

Artists with disabilities exhibit 100 works of art in White Plains (New York)
Journal News story on an exhibit, "Vision 2004: Westchester Artists with Disabilities," which opened yesterday at the Arts Exchange in White Plains - "The exhibit in the ornate main room of a former bank displays 100 paintings, drawings, watercolors, collages, sculpture and photographs of 50 artists who utilize mental health services in Westchester County."  
  

Insurers' treatment of eating disorders criticized (New York)
Daily Star story - "One of the deadliest mental illnesses also presents unique insurance struggles for those involved with it, according to a recent report from the state attorney general's office. Attorney General Eliot Spitzer released a report detailing the issues that patients with eating disorders may face when dealing with health insurance companies. ... The report said patients should check on treatment caps and review criteria for eating disorder treatment. Additionally, patients should research providers carefully and appeal care denials, the report said."  
  

Bill would curtail prescriptions for mentally ill children (Massachusetts)
Story in the Boston Globe - "The Church of Scientology's national campaign to attack the field of psychiatry has come to Beacon Hill, where several senators are sponsoring legislation to curtail the prescription of medication to mentally ill children. The bill, sponsored by Senators Richard T. Moore and Charles E. Shannon, would require doctors to provide parents with information from the "Physician's Desk Reference Family Guide to Prescription Drugs" related to a medication's possible side effects. Doctors would need a parent or guardian's signature before prescribing Ritalin, Prozac, and other widely used psychotropic medicines."  
  

Officials seek help to divert mentally ill inmates (Pennsylvania)
Herald-Mail story - "The Franklin County Prison Board will ask members of Pennsylvania's congressional delegation to co-sponsor legislation that would fund programs to divert nonviolent mentally ill criminal offenders from county jails. The Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act of 2003 was passed by unanimous consent in the U.S. Senate last year, said Don Murray, associate legislative director for the National Association of Counties, or NACo."  
  

New Congressional Caucus Focuses on Addiction, Recovery
Brief item at JoinTogether.org - "Reps. Jim Ramstad (R-Minn.) and Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) have formed a new Addiction, Treatment and Recovery Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives, intended to enhance awareness of addiction and educate lawmakers about the challenges associated with accessing treatment and recovery services, the Legal Action Center reported March 2."