Volume 1 Issue 6, June 2023

In this Q&A, we speak to Jack Turban, a physician–scientist and Assistant Professor of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry at The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where he directs the Gender Psychiatry Program. His research examines the mental health of transgender and gender diverse youth, with a particular focus on topics related to public policy.

Climate change and ecological emergencies threaten life on Earth. This creates a distress that is in danger of being pathologized and dismissed. We examine how such feelings are rational and underpinned by instinctive compassion for the environment and each other. We must respond by supporting people to act with their full potential, amidst systemic and government failures.

Cases of mild or transient distress in young people are increasingly viewed as problems that require medical intervention. As CAMHS clinicians, we argue that this overmedicalization undermines the value of social support within the family and community, and funding cuts to nonmedical support services have only compounded the problem.

Sex and gender play an important role in mental health. Clinical and preclinical research for novel treatments need to take this serious matter under consideration. The development of safe and effective treatments for specific populations can be achieved only with enhanced and targeted funding that will generate robust and reliable data.

LGBTQIA+ older adults are under-represented in Alzheimer’s disease and mental health research. Here we highlight the current research evidence, social and policy influences, and ways healthcare and research professionals can improve equity in research and healthcare.

Nord and coauthors performed a meta-analysis to identify the degree to which specific biological, psychological or somatic interventions used as acute augmentation of psychological therapy further reduced psychiatric symptoms, demonstrating that various types of acute augmentations (such as pharmacological augmentations) were effective but to varying degrees.

This large study, conducted in school-aged children in China, evaluates the relationship between long-term exposure to ambient particulate matter and positive screening for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The authors report stronger associations between ADHD and PM₁ exposure than between ADHD and PM_2.5.

Yang et al. used longitudinal data from a large US cohort to investigate the association between childhood asthma, allergies and premenstrual disorders in young adulthood.

Using a placebo-controlled, randomized crossover design, authors demonstrate that intranasal oxytocin modulated the processing of fearful facial expressions during an fMRI task in adults with antisocial personality disorder with psychopathy.

Using data from a large US population survey, Choi et al. investigated the nuanced associations between perceived social support and the risk for depression during the COVID-19 pandemic.