Week of October 27–31, 2025

Youth Mental Health

• After several decades of helicopter parenting, it would appear that young people have begun to helicopter parent themselves and each other. Just like their parents before them, their vigilance is suffused with anxiety. Meanwhile, it’s harder than ever for parents to resist the forms of caregiving that were once considered “overprotective.” Thanks to popular apps like Life360, and features on our devices like read receipts that we all but take for granted, being overprotective has come to be seen as a baseline condition of caring for each other. Read more here.

AI and Mental Health

• In 2021, I was a University of California, Berkeley Ph.D. candidate lecturing on my research about how users turn to chatbots for help coping with suicidal ideation. I wasn’t prepared for my students’ response. I argued that choosing to talk to a chatbot about thoughts of suicide isn’t “crazy” or unusual. This, I explained, didn’t necessarily mean chatbots offer safe or optimal support, but instead highlights a stark reality: We live in a world with very few outlets to discuss suicidal ideation. Read more here.

The Opioid Crisis

• A federal appeals court overturned a landmark decision in West Virginia that had rejected attempts by an opioid-ravaged area to be compensated by U.S. drug distributors for an influx of prescription pain pills into the region. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, ruled that a lower court judge erred when he said West Virginia’s public nuisance law did not apply to the lawsuit involving the distribution of opioids. Read more here.
• Buprenorphine is one of three medications approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat opioid use disorder. It’s considered best practice for treatment when paired with counseling. As a longtime prescriber of these medications, Shukla knew their effectiveness firsthand. Yet only an estimated one in five people who need them receive them, according to government statistics. They are hindered by barriers like a lack of access to medical providers and transportation and by fleeting motivation to seek treatment. Read more here.

Research

• In this cohort study, it was found that soft drink consumption may contribute to MDD through gut microbiota alterations, notably involving Eggerthella. Public health strategies to reduce soft drink intake may help mitigate depression risk, especially among vulnerable populations; in addition, interventions for depression targeting the microbiome composition appear promising. Read more here.
• Teens who start using cannabis before age 15 are more likely to use the drug often later in their lives. They are also more likely to develop mental and physical health problems in young adulthood compared to their peers who did not use the drug in adolescence. Those are the findings of a new study in JAMA Network Open. Read more here.
• Adults with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or recurrent major depressive disorder—especially those who are older, Black or Hispanic, have chronic conditions, have public health insurance, or were hospitalized during infection—are at elevated risk for long COVID, according to an analysis published yesterday in JAMA Network Open. Read more here.

Government Shutdown

• Republicans are barreling toward the upcoming Obamacare enrollment period without a unified plan to address the sticker shock that millions of Americans are likely to experience due to the expiration of key federal subsidies. The lack of direction comes from the top, with President Donald Trump not providing clear guidance to his party on how he wants to deal with the expiring subsidies that could result in dramatic out-of-pocket price hikes for enrollees. Read more here.
• New Jerseyans who purchase health insurance through the state’s exchange will see an average increase of nearly 175 percent in their premiums next year, the Murphy administration announced. The state’s Department of Banking and Insurance said the sticker shock is attributed to the expiration of enhanced federal health insurance subsidies — which have been the key sticking point of the federal government shutdown. Read more here.
• The rates, pricing, and other data for 2026 Affordable Care Act (ACA) insurance plans were publicly posted on the federal Healthcare.gov marketplace just three days ahead of the start of open enrollment. The health research nonprofit KFF said the average increase in premiums for ACA plans will be 26 percent next year, based on data for “benchmark” silver plans, which are the mid-tier plans in each region that most people purchase and are used to set the subsidy amounts. Read more here.