A study examining the impact the pandemic has had on pediatric mental health found a more than 300% increase in intentional self-harm claims among teenagers in the Northeast.
“Comparing August 2019 to August 2020 in the Northeast, for the age group 13-18, there was a 333.93 percent increase in intentional self-harm claim lines as a percentage of all medical claim lines, a rate higher than that in any other region in any month studied for that age group,” FAIR Health, a nonprofit group that gathers information for the largest database of privately billed health insurance claims, reported in a white paper published Tuesday.
Among the same age demographic, 13-18, claim lines for overall overdoses increased by 94.91% in March 2020 compared to March 2019. General anxiety disorders also increased by 93.6% in April 2020 compared to April 2019 for the age group.
“We know that teenagers already have high rates of mental illness,” Dr. Jess Shatkin of the Child Study Center at NYU Langone Medical Center told MedPage Today. “Now [with the pandemic], their parents are starting to struggle, with relationships, jobs, food security. It just ups the ante. We already see vulnerability, and this just makes them more vulnerable.”
SCHOOL DISTRICT PUSHES TO REOPEN IN-PERSON CLASSES AFTER SURGE IN SUICIDES DURING VIRUS LOCKDOWNS
The white paper comes after a report found mental health-related emergency visits for children increased last year amid lockdowns and restrictions concerning the coronavirus.
“Compared with 2019, the proportion of mental health-related visits for children aged 5–11 and 12–17 years increased [by] approximately 24% and 31%, respectively,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report, and it noted that “monitoring indicators of children’s mental health, promoting coping and resilience, and expanding access to services to support children’s mental health are critical during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Doctors signed a letter last year warning then-President Donald Trump that continued lockdowns would lead to a “mass casualty incident.”
“We are alarmed at what appears to be the lack of consideration for the future health of our patients,” the letter said. “The downstream health effects … are being massively under-estimated and under-reported. This is an order of magnitude error.”
“In medical terms, the shutdown was a mass casualty incident,” the letter continued. “The millions of casualties of a continued shutdown will be hiding in plain sight, but they will be called alcoholism, homelessness, suicide, heart attack, stroke, or kidney failure. In youths it will be called financial instability, unemployment, despair, drug addiction, unplanned pregnancies, poverty, and abuse.”
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Lockdowns and getting children back in class remain an issue, as some teachers unions in areas across the country resist getting back into the classroom out of fear it could worsen the pandemic.
However, various studies conducted in the United States and abroad have found children are at low risk of spreading the virus.
