2016 Election Triggered Clinical Depression For Some, But Social Buffers Helped Protect Others From Distress
Researchers wanted to study how people react to a large political shift, and whether people exhibited psychical symptoms of depression.
Los Angeles Times:
How Your Brain May Have Shielded You From Depression After The 2016 Election If You Didn't Like The Result
For some people the election of Donald Trump was a glorious moment of triumph. For others, it was a debilitating moment of trauma. But for a team of researchers at UCLA, it was the perfect opportunity to test how the brain responds to political distress. "A lot of research on stress in the brain looks at events that occur on an individual level," said Sarah Tashjian, a graduate student in psychology at UCLA who led the work. "We wanted to see if we could extrapolate that to a larger event like a shift in the political climate" (Netburn, 2/8)
In other public health news —
Los Angeles Times:
Snooping Around In Hospital Pipes, Scientists Find DNA That Fuels The Spread Of Superbugs
The pipes carrying away the effluvia of very sick people are bound to be nasty, dirty places. But just how unwholesome they are is made clear in a new report showing that the pipes beneath a hospital intensive care unit are a throbbing, seething hookup zone for antibiotic-resistant bacteria. (Healy, 2/6)
KQED:
Monterey County Declares Hepatitis A Outbreak Among Homeless
Monterey County is the latest county in California to declare a hepatitis A outbreak among its homeless population. California has been dealing with its largest hep A outbreak since the vaccine came out more than 20 years ago. (Mahoney, 2/7)
KPBS:
UC San Diego Research Finds More Children Affected By Fetal Alcohol Disorders Than Previously Thought
In the study, the largest of its kind ever conducted in the U.S., researchers screened more than 6,000 first-graders in four different regions of the country. Researchers found that one to five percent of the children had a fetal alcohol disorder. (Goldberg, 2/7)