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A new study published in the Journal of Child Development looked at moral reasoning about gang violence by children and adolescents exposed to maras in Honduras and not exposed in Nicaragua. “My interest in child moral development and community violence involving gangs comes from my own personal experiences growing up,” study author Franklin Moreno told us. “My study is about how children and adolescents morally evaluate and reason about acts of physical violence associated with gangs that impact the communities they live in. [More]

A new study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal looked at household food insecurity and health service use for mental and substance use disorders among children and adolescents in Ontario, Canada. “There have been other studies that have shown that food insecurity can lead to behavioural issues among children and adolescents, as well as symptoms of mental health problems,” study author Kelly Anderson told us. “We wanted to examine whether these behaviours and symptoms are translating to clinically significant mental health problems that require contact with the health care system.” [More]

A new study published in JAMA Neurology looked at the characteristics of emergency department visits among older adults with dementia. “This study provides the first estimates of how often older adults with dementia utilize emergency services and the main reasons that drive such care,” study author Lauren Gerlach told us. “We anticipated that patients with dementia would utilize emergency services frequently but were unaware of what the main drivers of care were.” [More]

A new study published in the Journal of Sex Research looked at bisexual people’s health experience in primary care in English. “The study was part of a larger study where we used data from the General Practice Patient Survey (GPPS) from England across a few years to track whether disclosing/reporting of sexuality had changed over the years,” study author Carrie Llewellyn told us. “We found from this part of the study that reporting of being straight (heterosexual) was declining year on year and hence identifying as lesbian, gay or bisexual was increasing.” [More]

A new study published in the Lancet looked at the effects of COVID-19 on cognitive performance in a community-based cohort. “Many people report ongoing symptoms after COVID-19, including brain fog and problems with concentration, memory and attention,” study author Dr. Rose Penfold told us. “Previous research has shown that some of these people perform worse on cognitive testing. However, most of this research has been done in hospitalized patients who had more severe infection.” [More]

A recent study looked at paternal and maternal psychiatric history and risk of preterm and early term birth. It was a nation-wide study using Swedish registers. “It has been known for some time that women who are clinically anxious or depressed are more likely to deliver a child prematurely,” study author Michael E. Silverman told us. “Indeed, considerable evidence now exists showing a relationship between various psychiatric illnesses and the likelihood of delivering a premature infant.” [More]

A recent article published in the Journal of Professional Psychology, Research and Practice looked at emotional support animal assessments and the importance of creating a standard and comprehensive model for mental health professionals. “This is the third in a series of articles that address emotional support animals and the appropriate role of professionals certifying these pets for their patients,” researcher, Leisl Bryant told us. [More]

A new study published in the Journal of Family and Community Health looked at parental sexuality disclosure, discrimination, and depression among Black sexual minority men and Black transgender women. “There were two main goals of our study,” study author, Rodman E. Turpin told us. “First, we wanted to identify the relationship between discrimination and depression among Black sexual minority men and Black transgender women. Discrimination experienced by these populations can include social and structural racism, homophobia, transphobia, and more, so we used a comprehensive measure of discrimination for our study.” [More]

A new study published in the Journal of Rural Sociology looked at the built environmental and social and emotional support among rural older adults and whether there is a case for social infrastructure and attention to ethnoracial differences. “In this study, we were interested in determining if and how older adult social and emotional health is associated with social infrastructure availability in rural contexts,” study author Danielle Rhubart told us. [More]

A new study published in the Journal of Psychological Medicine looked at early-initiated childhood reading for pleasure and its associations with better cognitive performance, mental well-being and brain structure in early teens. “I and my co-authors wanted to understand the effects of reading for pleasure in young children on brain structure, cognition, school academic achievement and mental health,” study author Barbara J. Shakahian told us. “Some of the previously published literature suggested that there should be beneficial effects on cognition, but there had not been a very large scale study, with over 10,000 adolescents before on all these measures together.” [More]