Gov. JB Pritzker signed off Thursday on a plan that lays the groundwork for Illinois to become the first state to implement universal mental health screenings in public schools. [Health News Illinois]

The law tasks the Illinois State Board of Education to work with the Children's Behavioral Health Transformation Initiative and other stakeholders on resource materials, which will be made available to schools by September 2026.

The materials will include model procedures and guidance to help school districts implement universal mental health screening by the 2027-2028 school year.

School districts will offer screenings at least once a year to students starting in the third grade.

The prepared materials will address options for parents, guardians and students to opt out of screenings. It will also address confidentiality and privacy considerations, how to communicate to families and communities about the use of mental health screenings, storage of mental health screening results and connecting individuals to resources after screenings.

Officials said that, under current law, screenings are not required, which makes it challenging to identify and address mental health issues that cause barriers to learning.

“We are now in a better position to support districts in their efforts to promote learning and well-being among all students,” said Dr. Dana Weiner, the head of Illinois’ Office for Children’s Behavioral Health Transformation.

Additionally, the law tasks state agencies to partner with psychiatric hospitals and schools to raise awareness of the online portal with information about available behavioral health services for children and adolescents.

“This bill is a proactive step toward making sure we can integrate early detection, because too often warning signs are missed or dismissed, and kids fall through the cracks,” said Rep. Lindsey LaPointe, D-Chicago. “I’m proud to work alongside our state’s behavioral healthcare advocates, including our Children’s Behavioral Health Officer, to ensure our public schools have the tools to connect students and families with real support — early, directly, and before it’s too late.”

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Primary care medicine should be and is the bedrock of American healthcare. As a family physician and chairman of a department of family medicine at a medical school, I admit to being biased. Nonetheless, I am concerned that we are losing two essential bedrock elements of successful patient care: the biopsychosocial model of effective primary care and the concept of shared decision-making between clinician and patient. [CT Mirror & KFF Health News]

The term biopsychosocial speaks for itself. A good clinician must thoroughly understand and examine the patient’s biology to address any  concern, equally essential is respecting the patient’s psychological and emotional circumstances at the time of the clinical encounter and finally it’s essential to fully acknowledge the patient’s social structure and their economic, cultural, educational, occupational and living environment.

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By a vote of 51-47 on Tuesday evening, the Senate confirmed Susan Monarez, PhD, as the next director of the CDC. [Medpage Today]

The vote fell along party lines, with 51 Republicans voting for the nominee and all 45 Democratic senators and two Independent senators voting no. Two senators, Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) and Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), did not vote.

Monarez fielded a wide variety of questions during her nomination hearing last month before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee. Sen. Rand Paul, MD (R-Ky.), asked Monarez whether she thought it was an appropriate use of his office for then-NIH Director Francis Collins, MD, PhD, to ask Anthony Fauci, MD, then the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, to "take down" three prominent scientists. Monarez answered, "I'm not familiar with that particular encounter, but we need to make sure that we are open to letting the science ..."

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The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration released the “2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Health” on July 28. [Becker's Behavioral Health]

The survey analyzes how people across the U.S. report experiences with mental health conditions, substance use and pursuit of treatment. The 2024 report marks the fourth consecutive year of comparable data collection, allowing the identification of emerging trends. 

Here are five statistics to note:

1. Current use of tobacco products, vaped nicotine, alcohol or an illicit drug was reported by 58% of people ages 12 years or older. Among those, 46.6% consumed alcohol. Reported “current use” is classified as use in the past month.
2. Nearly 1 in 5 adolescents ages 12 to 17 years reported moderate or severe symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder — a measure introduced for the first time this year with no prior data for comparison. 
3. Within the past year, 33% of adults age 18 years or older reported either a mental health condition or substance use disorder.
4. Nearly 1 in 5 people — about 10.2 million — classified as needing substance use treatment received it in 2024.
5. A total of 45 million people considered themselves to be recovered or actively in recovery from a mental health condition. An additional 23.5 million people considered themselves to be recovering or recovered from a substance use disorder.

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Exposure to places with high atmospheric lead levels is tied to an approximately 20% increase in memory problems. More news is on liver disease, Alzheimer's, a salmonella outbreak, and more. [Medpage Today]

— Lead-exposed neurons show persistent vulnerabilities

MedPage Today: Memory Problems Today Tied To Leaded Gas Levels Half A Century Earlier
People who grew up in U.S. areas with high atmospheric lead levels were about 20% more likely to report memory problems 50 years later, a study of more than 600,000 older adults showed. Compared with people from areas with the lowest atmospheric lead levels, the odds of reported memory impairment were higher in people from areas with moderate levels, high levels, and extremely high levels, said Eric Brown, MD, MSc, of the University of Toronto, at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference (AAIC). (George, 7/27)

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Living through the COVID pandemic aged your brain by about five and a half extra months. This, according to new research. It’s a pretty scary headline, but what does “brain age” even mean, how do you measure it, and what risks does a five-and-a-half month older brain have to face? [Medscape]

We’re going to use what’s left of our brains to dig through the data this week. Stay tuned.

The study generating those scary headlines is “Accelerated Brain Ageing During the COVID-19 Pandemic”, from Ali-Reza Mohammadi-Nejad and colleagues, appearing in Nature Communications. 

Full article here> 

Another article that may be of interest to you: WHO Eyes Emerging COVID-19 Variant>

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Chicago leaders said Wednesday they will invest $40 million to improve seven shelters for those experiencing homelessness, a mission they said will improve health outcomes and create safer settings for a vulnerable population. [Health News Illinois]

The funding, a mix of federal and local funds, will allow the shelters to turn 350 beds into non-congregate settings, as well as move beds from areas with multiple residents to single-resident rooms.

More than 750 permanent shelter beds in Chicago will be affected by the improvements, which also include making them accessible to disabled individuals and updating some facilities with air conditioning.

“This investment is the most significant step forward in the history of Chicago in our mission to make housing a human right in our city,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said in a statement. “When it comes to building a safe and affordable city, housing and shelter must be prioritized to stabilize our residents who are housing insecure or experiencing homelessness.”

Five of the seven shelters are on the city’s west end.

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CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz, MD, is charting an ambitious path to reshape federal healthcare policy in line with President Donald Trump’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda. His vision comes as President Trump on July 4 signed The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a sweeping package of reforms targeting Medicaid, Medicare, and the ACA marketplace.[Becker's Hospital Review]

From plans to close a Medicaid funding “loophole” to probing hospitals over gender care for minors and clamping down on states using federal Medicaid funds to treat undocumented migrants, here are 15 key actions CMS has taken since Dr. Oz was confirmed as administrator:

1. CMS plans to add prior authorization for some traditional fee-for-service Medicare services as part of its newly launched Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction model.

The agency will partner with companies specializing in AI and machine learning to test ways to provide an improved and expedited prior authorization process for traditional Medicare services including epidural steroid injections for pain management, cervical fusion, arthroscopy for knee osteoarthritis, and skin and tissue substitutes. The news came one week after the wider insurance industry announced reforms that aim to reduce and streamline prior authorization processes across commercial, Medicare Advantage and managed Medicaid plans.

2. CMS is enacting a final rule that will shorten the open enrollment period on the ACA exchange and create stricter eligibility verifications for enrollees. The changes will lower individual premiums by about 5% on average, and save around $12 billion in 2026 by clamping down on improper enrollments, according to the agency, which estimates as many as 5 million people may have improperly enrolled in ACA plans “enabled by weakened verification process and expanded premium subsidies.”

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The Department of Public Health issued nearly $2.3 million in fines to 210 Illinois nursing homes during the first quarter of 2025. [Health News Illinois]

The agency cited four homes with “type AA” violations that led to resident deaths. They were:

Alden Estates of Huntley for failing to supervise and implement a physician's orders for an individual's diet, leading them to choke and subsequently die.

Bria of Palos Hills for failing to implement interventions to prevent accidental removal of tracheostomy cannula and accidental extubation for a ventilator dependent resident; ensuring a ventilator care unit had uninterrupted nursing supervision; initiating intravenous access to provide intravenous fluids and failing to call 911 immediately upon determining that intervention for hypoglycemia was not effective, leading to the death of a resident.

City View Multicare Center in Cicero for failing to ensure a cognitively impaired resident on an altered diet had access to a regular consistency sandwich, which led them to choke and subsequently die.

Goldwater Care Danville for failing to provide timely emergency airway management and suctioning for a resident in respiratory distress during a medical emergency.

Seventy-two homes received “type A” violations for incidents with a “substantial probability” of death or serious mental or physical harm.

See the full list>

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US rejects WHO pandemic changes to global health rules | The United States has rejected amendments adopted in 2024 by members of the World Health Organization to its legally binding health rules aimed at improving preparedness for future pandemics following the disjointed global response to COVID-19.
The Department of State and Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement they had transmitted on Friday the official U.S. rejection of the amendments to the International Health Regulations, which were adopted by consensus last year.

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