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Anxiety and depression among children across the country increased significantly during the pandemic, and even more so among children in Oregon, according to a study out Monday from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The foundation is a national charitable organization that releases new information about child welfare through an annual report called Kids Count Data Book. Its newest edition, released Monday, outlines and ranks children’s wellness across 16 factors by state. (Diep, 8/8)

This year’s annual Kid Count report shows a 26-percent increase in anxiety and depression for kids ages three to 17 in the U-S through 2020 at the height of the pandemic. “Kids are dealing with the world they’re dealing with violence in a variety of ways when you think about kids doing active shooter drills in their school or many kids in the states are dealing with challenges related to racism.” (Hanley, 8/9)

There is no shortage of possible causes: Overparenting, screens and social media, cutthroat academic and sports competition, political acrimony, social injustice, climate concerns, gun violence and virtual learning among others. What gets obscured when we lump all youths together, though, is that certain demographic groups are especially vulnerable to psychological problems and may disproportionately account for the overall trend. (Kecmanovic, 8/8)

Implementing a simple and consistent routine provides a foundation that promotes positive mental health, according to Channing Brown, M.D., assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics Division of Academic General Pediatrics and Division of General Internal Medicine at University of Alabama at Birmingham Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine. (Echols, 8/8)

Snapchat, the ephemeral messaging app, introduced its first parental controls on Tuesday, as social media platforms face increasing scrutiny for exposing young users to potentially harmful content. Snap, Snapchat’s parent company, said in a blog post that its new tools would let parents see whom their teenagers were friends with on the app and whom they had communicated with in the previous seven days. (Huang, 8/9)

Much attention has been paid to the potential role of social media in that crisis. But researchers who study the relationship say that the field is still in its infancy, and new methodologies and funding sources are needed to understand it and push us toward a healthier environment for kids online. (Burke, 8/8)