Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
APA Advises Parents To Monitor Teens' Social Media Use
For the first time, the American Psychological Association has issued recommendations for guiding teenager's use of social media. The advisory, released Tuesday, is aimed at teens, parents, teachers and policy makers. This comes at a time when teenagers are facing high rates of depression, anxiety and loneliness. And, as NPR has reported, there's mounting evidence that social media can exacerbate and even cause these problems. (Doucleff, 5/9)
鈥淭here is a lot of talk about social media these days, including some suggestions that do not fit with the science,鈥 said APA chief science officer Mitch Prinstein, a co-chair of the advisory panel that developed the recommendations. 鈥淲e are releasing this report now to offer a science-based and balanced perspective on this issue so all stakeholders can make decisions based on our expertise regarding benefits and potential risks associated with social media.鈥 (Rosenblatt, 5/9)
In other health and wellness news 鈥
A study presented late last week at the Digestive Disease Week 2023 conference suggests that exposure to antibiotics at an early age is among the factors that can increase the risk of pediatric inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). (Dall, 5/8)
Marine units must once again conduct random breathalyzer tests on assigned troops, following a years-long pause in the program because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Because Marines must blow into the apparatus, the federal government鈥檚 COVID-19 emergency policies had 鈥渘ecessitated鈥 a halt to the testing of on-duty Marines for alcohol via breathalyzer, according to a Marine administrative message. But with the public health emergency officially ending May 11, units are required to resume the testing by June, if they haven鈥檛 done so already. (Loewenson, 5/8)
Women who use virtual reality headsets tend to experience nausea and dizziness from exposure to the immersive computer-generated environment more often than men. That鈥檚 the sum of the work from Iowa State University psychology and engineering researchers, who have received a $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to further their research and examine adaptation to the technology. Cybersickness is something ISU psychology professor Jonathan Kelly describes as akin to motion sickness. A person may feel symptoms such as nausea, dizziness or a headache. (Peikes, 5/8)
The California woman suing Subway, claiming its tuna products contain ingredients other than tuna, wants to end her lawsuit because she is pregnant, prompting Subway to demand her lawyers be sanctioned for bringing a frivolous case. (Stempel, 5/8)
On maternal deaths 鈥
Progress in reducing deaths during pregnancy and childbirth and among newborn infants has stalled since 2015, and over 60 countries are on track to miss 2030 targets at current rates, a World Health Organization report released on Tuesday found. The COVID-19 pandemic, poverty, and worsening humanitarian crises have strained already pressured healthcare systems, the U.N. agency said in a statement. (5/9)
Simple, low-cost measures can reduce the risk of excessive bleeding after childbirth, the leading causes of maternal postpartum death, according to a study of interventions that can prevent complications primarily afflicting women in lower-income countries. (Kew, 5/9)