MFP/ANA e-Newsletter: November 14, 2025

MENTAL HEALTH, SUBSTANCE USE, AND NURSING ARTICLES

Native leaders highlight mental health and suicide prevention during heritage month (opens new window)

As the nation marks National Native American Heritage Month, tribal leaders and health advocates are shining a spotlight on mental health challenges and suicide prevention in Native communities.The Association of American Indian Physicians (AAIP) and the Sac and Fox Nation are partnering to raise awareness about the free 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, aiming to reduce stigma and encourage individuals to seek help when needed. Read more (opens new window) 

A chronic multidimensional measure of energy poverty and its impacts on physical and mental health (opens new window)

Energy poverty, which refers to the situation where individuals lack access to modern energy sources or essential energy services like electricity and clean cooking facilities (IEA 2010), exerts a detrimental effect on people’s physical and mental health (Kose 2019; Churchill and Smyth 2021). Households in a state of energy poverty often face serious health threats. With regard to physical health, the absence of modern energy services such as electricity and the overreliance on solid fuels can result in indoor air pollution, which poses a great threat to physical health. Households’ inability to pay for heating expenses can lead to indoor temperatures being either too high or too low, which significantly increases the incidence of respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses (Llorca et al. 2020). Read more (opens new window)

Use of Generative AI for Mental Health Advice Among US Adolescents and Young Adults (opens new window)

Since the launch of large language model (LLM) chatbots, use of this form of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has grown rapidly, especially among adolescents and young adults. Concurrently, the US is experiencing a youth mental health crisis. In the past year, 18% of adolescents aged 12 to 17 years had a major depressive episode; 40% of these received no mental health care. It is unclear how many adolescents and young adults use LLM chatbots for advice or help when experiencing emotional distress. We report results from the first nationally representative survey of US adolescents and young adults aged 12 to 21 years examining the prevalence, frequency, and perceived helpfulness of advice from generative AI when feeling sad, angry, or nervous. Read more (opens new window)

Social media’s beauty filters may look harmless – but they’re quietly affecting Black youths’ mental health (opens new window)

People of color have long critiqued social media filters for perpetuating Eurocentric beauty standards. In one TikTok video, a young Black woman who used the app’s glow filter was vexed that her brown eyes transformed to blue. In another video, a user wrote that she liked a face-altering filter until she realized that it generated the appearance of a smaller nose. Now, new research shows that such filters, along with a collection of other race-related online experiences, can negatively affect Black adolescents’ sleep and ability to concentrate on schoolwork the following day. Read more (opens new window)  (opens new window)

Marshawn Kneeland’s death spotlights mental health stigma in Black community (opens new window)

Dallas Cowboys player Marshawn Kneeland’s death by suicide last week rattled the athletic world and those closest to him. It also reverberated through the Black community, where the loss of a 24-year-old Black man with a promising NFL career sparked painful conversations. Whether it’s in church or at the barbershop, said Patrick LeBlanc, the news of Kneeland’s death has been “the hot topic.” LeBlanc, 61, who is a longtime mental health advocate in Dallas, said the tragedy has shined a spotlight on a persistent and growing problem he has been warning about for years: a mental health crisis facing Black boys and men. Read more (opens new window) 

Durham nonprofit sees uptick in mental health service demand from Latino immigrants (opens new window)

Some immigrants in North Carolina are reporting anxiety and depression, a North Carolina psychiatrist says. Dr. Luke Smith, who works closely with the Latino immigrant community, says he started seeing a shift earlier this year. “The first part of this year hit, we started seeing some kids whose parents wouldn't let them go to school. And we thought, 'oh, boy, what's that mean for our work?'” Smith said. Smith is the executive director of El Futuro, a nonprofit that offers mental health services to the Latino immigrant community. He says he’s seen a surge in demand this year because of the increase of Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests and patrols. Read more (opens new window)

Alabama promised to improve psychiatric care for men charged with crimes. They still wait years (opens new window)

Fernando Clark spent the last 10 months of his life in a jail cell, waiting for psychiatric treatment a court ordered he undergo after he’d been arrested for stealing cigarettes and some fruit from a gas station. He died while waiting for the treatment that never arrived, found unresponsive in his jail cell. Clark was just one of hundreds of people across Alabama awaiting a spot in the state’s increasingly limited facilities, despite a consent decree requiring the state to address delays in evaluating and providing care for people suffering from mental illness who are charged with crimes. Read more (opens new window)

The importance of partnerships (opens new window)

The 2025 UN High-Level Meeting on the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases and the Promotion of Mental Health marked an important turning point for mental health. Never before had the UN General Assembly put forth a political declaration with mental health as a central component. Although the declaration did not reach formal consensus endorsement, the message from the high-level meeting was clear: mental health is a global concern that requires a coordinated global response. Read more (opens new window)

Use of generative AI chatbots and wellness applications for mental health (opens new window)

Millions of people globally are engaging with general-purpose generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) chatbots and wellness applications to address unmet mental health needs. This can in part be explained by the current mental health crisis, growing rates of loneliness and disconnection, lack of enough providers to meet growing public demand (especially in under-resourced, rural, or unincorporated communities), and a health care system that disincentivizes providers from accepting insurance, leaving many people who are uninsured or underinsured without options. Read more (opens new window)  (opens new window)

New Tool Helps Teens Build Personal ‘Mood Plans’ (opens new window)

A team of pediatricians, psychologists, and psychiatrists at Cincinnati Children’s has created the Mood Action Plan (MAP)—a new tool pediatricians can use in clinic to help adolescents recognize and self-manage depression and anxiety symptoms through personalized “mood plans.” Details about the new, evidence-based tool were published online Nov. 6, 2025, in Academic Pediatrics. “In light of the ongoing youth mental health crisis, general pediatricians are being called on more and more to address mental health concerns in primary care. It is important to equip them with acceptable, evidence-based, feasible tools to support them and their patients,” says Landon Krantz, MD, MHS, lead author of the study. Read more (opens new window) 

Strengthening Rural Maternal Mental Health (opens new window)

Maternal mental health disorders impact 20% of women, while those living in rural communities are 21% more likely to face perinatal depression compared to women living in urban communities. These disparities are driven by various factors exacerbated by social drivers of health. For example socioeconomic challenges (e.g., poverty, unemployment and food insecurity) compounded by limited access to behavioral health specialists, stigma and fragmented systems of care can negatively impact a mothers’ wellness. Untreated maternal depression can lead to poor short and long-term intergenerational outcomes. Related outcomes can include higher rates of pre-term and low birth weight deliveries, long-term health and mental health risks for both mother and child. In the mother, untreated maternal depression can increase her risk of suicide, chronic depression, substance use and poor health, including obesity. Read more (opens new window)

Social work initiative expands behavioral health care access in rural South Carolina (opens new window)

After seven years of service in the U.S. Army and National Guard, Landon Pitts was ready to take on something new. He just wasn’t sure what that something was. On the advice of friends, he decided to attend college and major in business. While studying for his undergraduate degree, Pitts was vice president of Winthrop Student Veterans and started volunteering with organizations and initiatives to assist fellow veterans. “I learned I had a passion for community service. I volunteered on weekends, between classes, anything I could do,” he says. Read more (opens new window)

HOTLINE RESOURCES

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (opens new window) or 1-800-273-TALK (8255) 

The Substance and Mental Health Services Administration (opens new window) provides COVID-19 guidance and resources to assist individuals, providers, communities and sates across the country. The website is updated daily.

The National CLAS Standards

The National CLAS Standards are a set of 15 action steps intended to advance health equity, improve quality, and help eliminate health care disparities by providing a blueprint for individuals and health and health care organizations to implement culturally and linguistically appropriate services. View the standards here (opens new window)