Mental Health

20% of Americans need Mental Health Care but are Routinely denied it– Medicare for All Should Fix that, Too

Gainesville, Florida (Special to Informed Comment) – Universal Medicare for All is a concept that a majority of Americans actually support . Of the 25 wealthiest nations in the world, the United States is the only one that doesn’t have it. The majority of these countries use single-payer, including the Netherlands — with its “managed […]

Epidemics

A Psychologist Explains: Top 3 Ways the Coronavirus Pandemic is Changing Who We Are

The Conversation

By Arie Kruglanski | – For most Americans, the coronavirus pandemic represents a completely unprecedented circumstance, as novel as it is life-changing. No event in recent history has affected us as profoundly and pervasively. Not only does it remind us of our physical fragility, it undermines economic security, throws daily routines topsy-turvy, wreaks havoc on […]

Featured

Not Giving up on Happiness: Care of the Self and Well-Being in a Plague Year

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The specter of plague haunts our world, and it brings with it not only the ghouls of disease and death but vast economic and social uncertainty of a sort only the most elderly among us remembers (the Great Depression and World War II). My father is 90 and when I […]

Mental Health

Who’s Afraid of Medicare for All?

OtherWords

By Jim Hightower | – We might expect that corporate billionaires and Koch-funded Republican right-wingers would be howl-at-the-moon opponents of a wealth tax, Medicare-for-All, and other big progressive ideas to help improve the circumstances of America’s workaday majority. But Democrats, too? Unfortunately, yes. Not grassroots activists, but a gaggle of don’t-rock-the-corporate-boat, fraidy-cat elected Democrats. These […]

Epidemics

America’s Suicide Epidemic is Hitting Trump’s Base Hard

Rajan Menon

(Tomdispatch.com) – We hear a lot about suicide when celebrities like Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade die by their own hand. Otherwise, it seldom makes the headlines. That’s odd given the magnitude of the problem. In 2017, 47,173 Americans killed themselves. In that single year, in other words, the suicide count was nearly seven times […]

Health Care

The Measure of our Happiness: Our Miserable Plutocracy

H. Patricia Hynes

For the past seven years ago, the United Nations has issued a report titled the World Happiness Report. While this report may sound somewhat lightweight, it actually ranks countries by serious measures including income, freedom, trust in government, social support, life expectancy and how happy citizens perceive themselves to be. The highest-ranking countries are those, […]

Children

Gaza: Study Shows Rapid Deterioration in Mental Health of Palestinian Children under Israeli Blockade

Middle East Monitor

Palestinian children in the occupied Gaza Strip are experiencing a rapid deterioration in their mental health, a new study by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) has found. According to the NRC, the survey found that 68 per cent of schoolchildren “in areas close to the Israeli perimeter fence have clear indications of psychosocial distress”. NRC […]

Mental Health

People are Happier and Saner if they Eat more Fruit and Vegetables

The Conversation

By Neel Ocean and Peter Howley | – (The Conversation) – It is well known that eating lots of fruit and vegetables is good for your physical health, but our latest research suggests that it might be good for your mental health too. A study from Australia in 2016 found improvements in psychological well-being after […]