California

Depression was rising among young people in Southern California. COVID made it worse

Published

3 months ago

October 1, 2024

Depression was rising among young people in Southern California. COVID made it worse

Children, teens and young adults in Southern California had been grappling with rising rates of depression and anxiety for years before the pandemic. Then COVID-19 came along and made their mental health struggles even worse.

Among 1.7 million young patients who were part of the Kaiser Permanente Southern California health system, the prevalence of clinically diagnosed depression was 60% higher in 2021 than it had been five years earlier, according to a new study. The prevalence of anxiety among young patients who did not have depression also rose by 35% during that period, researchers found.

For both conditions, the annual rate of increase was significantly higher during the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 than in the three years that preceded them.

What’s more, the trend was seen across all demographic groups regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity or income, according to the report published Tuesday in JAMA Network Open.

“COVID initially was considered an infectious-disease crisis,” said Dr. Siddhartha Kumar, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Kaiser and the study’s senior author. “This was another side of COVID. The side effects on mental health are long-lasting and impacted the society in a very major way.”

It’s no secret that young people have been suffering.

In 2016, when the National Survey of Children’s Health asked parents and other caregivers how their youngsters were faring, their responses indicated that 3.1% of kids ages 3 to 17 were depressed. By 2020, that figure was 4%.

That survey also found that the prevalence of anxiety among those children increased from 7.1% to 9.2% during the same period.

Another study of adolescents ages 12 to 17 who participated in the 2021 National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that 20% of them had experienced major depressive disorder in the past year.

And U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy focused the nation’s attention on the issue by issuing a public health advisory about youth mental health in 2021. The advisory cited studies that found 25% of children and teens ages 4 through 17 from around the world had experienced symptoms of depression during the pandemic while 20% had symptoms of anxiety. Both measures had doubled since the start of the pandemic.

The new study is believed to be the first large-scale examination of youth mental health in the COVID era based on official diagnoses rather than survey data, according to Kumar and his colleagues from Kaiser Permanente Southern California, whose territory extends from Ventura County to the Inland Empire and from Kern County to San Diego.

The study authors focused on the roughly 1.7 million health plan members who were between the ages 5 and 22 on the first day of at least one of the years between 2017 and 2021.

Those children and young adults reflected the diversity of Southern California as a whole, the researchers wrote. About half were Latino, 23% were white, 8% were Asian and 8% were Black. (Data were missing for some plan members.)

Slightly more than half — 55% — were from households with an annual income of $50,000 to $99,999. An additional 29% were from households that earned less, and 16% were from ones that earned more.

The researchers checked whether the young patients had been formally diagnosed with some form of clinical depression. To qualify, a doctor had to determine that a patient was experiencing a “sad or irritable mood or loss of interest in activities” that caused “significant impairment in daily life.”

They found that 1.35% of the patients were newly diagnosed with depression in 2017. That figure rose to 1.58% in 2018, 1.76% in 2019, 1.84% in 2020 and 2.1% in 2021, with the incidence increasing for all groups regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity or income.

Teens of high school age, 14 to 17, and young adults old enough to be in college, 18 to 22, had the highest incidences of depression throughout the study, the researchers found. Generally speaking, girls and women were more likely to be diagnosed with depression than boys and men, and the risk was consistently higher for patients who were white and who came from households with the highest incomes.

When the researchers tallied all the children and young adults with a new or existing depression diagnosis, they found that the prevalence was 2.55% in 2017, 2.92% in 2018, 3.27% in 2019, 3.53% in 2020 and 4.08% in 2021. The annual rate of increase was higher during the pandemic than before it, and the difference was large enough to be statistically significant, the researchers said.

They also examined patients diagnosed with anxiety, a condition they said was characterized by “excessive feelings of worry or persistent, even intrusive thoughts about certain fears or constant fear in general.”

Nearly 37% of the young patients with anxiety had also been diagnosed with depression. The researchers set them aside and focused on the ones who had anxiety alone.

By that measure, the incidence of newly diagnosed cases was 1.77% in 2017, 2.03% in 2018, 2.1% in 2019, 1.93% in 2020 and 2.32% in 2021.

College-age young adults had the highest incidence of anxiety without depression. The risk was also higher for people who were white and were in the highest income bracket, according to the study.

The prevalence of clinically diagnosed anxiety among patients without depression rose more steeply after the onset of the pandemic.

The prevalence of new or existing anxiety in patients without depression followed a similar pattern — 3.13% in 2017, 3.51% in 2018, 3.75% in2019, 3.61% in 2020 and 4.22% in 2021.

Both new and total cases of anxiety without depression increased significantly more in the COVID years than in the ones preceding it, the researchers found.

“Anxiety, mild depression, hopelessness, disappointment — these are common feelings all of us have from time to time. But it’s another thing when it reaches a clinical level,” Kumar said.

And when that happens to young people, the effects can be enduring.

“The teenage years are when you build your sense of self,” he said. “When adults go through stressful situations in their lives, often their reactions are based on how their sense of self was when they were young.”

Christina Bethell, a social epidemiologist and director of the Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative at Johns Hopkins University, agreed that the pandemic had exacerbated a mental health crisis affecting young people nationwide. But she said medical records could not capture the full scope of the problem.

Patients with depression or anxiety may not have access to a doctor, and those who do might not feel comfortable seeking treatment, she said. Primary care doctors are supposed to screen adolescents and adults for depression, but that doesn’t always happen. Even when it does, patients may not answer screening questions honestly. Sometimes doctors make mistakes that lead to misdiagnosis. And sometimes a patient who was correctly diagnosed recovers from depression or anxiety, but their medical records aren’t updated to reflect that.

“Medical records are often wrong, incomplete and only available for those in healthcare,” said Bethell, who wasn’t involved in the study.

In her view, the most important question isn’t whether someone has a diagnosis of depression or anxiety, but how they are actually faring.

“There are a whole bunch of people with a diagnosis who flourish, and there are people without a diagnosis who don’t flourish,” she said. “We want to keep our eye on the prize, which is youth well-being.”

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California

Your favorite movies starring California

Published

2 hours ago

December 28, 2024

Press Room

Your favorite movies starring California

Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. Here’s what you need to know to start your weekend:

The best movies that capture the essence of California

The Essential California team this year expanded opportunities for readers to directly engage with the newsletter. Each week we ask readers to answer a question — from the best local restaurants to favorite books.

One question in particular got a lot of attention and sparked some debate: What is your favorite movie that captures the essence of California?

Below are the most mentioned movies and comments from readers about what makes these films special to California. We hope this list will help find something to watch this weekend. Enjoy!

“Chinatown”

Adelaide writes: “It doesn’t get more iconic than a film noir that tackles tremendous geopolitical issues that still affect us to this day.”

And Jim writes: “How can you talk about movies that capture the essence of California and not mention one of the greatest movies of all time, ‘Chinatown’? Today, despite the state’s beauty and glorious climate (most of the time), it is still as corrupt and morally bankrupt as it was back in the days of stealing water from the Owens Valley.”

Paul Giamatti, left, and Thomas Haden Church in the 2004 movie “Sideways,” directed by Alexander Payne.

(Searchlight Pictures)

“Sideways”

Raymond Ballesteros writes: “One of my all time favorite movies to see that truly captures the essence of California, hands down, is ‘Sideways.’

“Alexander Payne seizes the beauty and majesty of California’s Santa Barbara wine country, including a handful of wineries that encapsulates the hearts of fellow wine lovers across California and the country. Of course, not to be watched with a glass of Merlot!”

One man stands looking at another man who's holding a surfboard in front of him

“Point Break”

Fritzi Lareau write: “I am a tour guide and when touring the Golden State I show my guests ‘Point Break’ (the original with Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze) or ‘Hollywood Homicide’ starring Harrison Ford.”

A black-and-white film still of a man with glasses looking skeptical

“Stand and Deliver”

Robert Reul writes: “One great film that is 100% California is ‘Stand and Deliver,’ with Edward James Olmos and an amazing cast of young actors. I have found few, if any, films that capture the absolute magic that can happen in the community of first-generation Americans, descended from hard-working Mexican immigrants.”

Jeff Bridges takes a fighting stance in "The Big Lebowski."

Honorable mentions

“Top Gun”

“The Birds”

“The Parent Trap”

“The Big Lebowski”

“Fast Times at Ridgemont High”

“La La Land”

Want to wade into the debate over which movie captures the essence of California? Feel free to email us at essentialcalifornia@latimes.com.

The week’s biggest stories

President-elect Donald Trump stands at a podium, American flags behind him, at his Mar-a-Lago estate in 2023.

Florida is winning the political battle with California as Trump takes office

Trump is stocking his cabinet with Floridians. And his plans to reverse California’s policies on the environment, crime, homelessness and education are facing far less pushback than they did during his first term.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has vowed to continue the fight against Trump’s policies but without what he called “a resistance brand” that defined his earlier clashes.
Meanwhile, healthcare is Newsom’s biggest unfinished project. Trump complicates the governor’s task.

Destructive waves keep thrashing Santa Cruz, causing millions of dollars in damage in recent years

Scientists say we are fighting H5N1 bird flu with one hand tied behind our backs

Scientists and health officials fear we’re on the precipice of another global pandemic as the H5N1 bird flu virus steamrolls its way across the globe. But when that could come to pass is hard to predict.
Just one mutation can make the bird flu a threat to humans, California researchers found.
L.A. County health officials are warning pet owners to avoid raw cat food after a feline died of bird flu.

California is growing again

The Golden State’s population grew by almost a quarter of a million residents in 2024, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, a rebound that brings California almost back to its pre-pandemic numbers.
While California’s population gain of 232,570 people from July 1, 2023, to July 1, 2024, represents the largest numeric population increase in the nation’s West, it lagged behind Texas, which expanded its population by 562,941, and Florida, which grew by 467,347 people.

More big stories

Get unlimited access to the Los Angeles Times. Subscribe here.

This week’s must reads

Illustration of a police search party in a snowy wooded area. Splatters of blood are seen in the snow.

A California inmate recruited “wives” to spread fentanyl across Alaska, federal authorities say.

The prisoner, Heraclio Sanchez Rodriguez, oversaw a sprawling drug ring that spread death and addiction to the most remote corners of Alaska, prosecutors say.

More great reads

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com.

For your weekend

a man in a green tracksuit with his hands behind his head

Going out

Staying in

How well did you follow the news this week? Take our quiz.

A collection of photos from this week's news quiz.

Which creature gets top billing in the title of the Barry Jenkins–directed “Lion King” prequel that hit theaters last week? Plus nine other questions from our weekly news quiz.

Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team

Hunter Clauss, multiplatform editor

Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

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California

Winning $1.22 billion Mega Millions ticket sold in Northern California

Published

11 hours ago

December 28, 2024

Press Room

Winning .22 billion Mega Millions ticket sold in Northern California

Winning $1.22B Mega Millions ticket sold in California

One Californian has plenty of dough to ring in the New Year after drawing the winning number. After three months without anyone winning the top prize, a ticket worth an estimated $1.22 billion was sold for the drawing Friday night.

According to the California State Lottery, the jackpot ticket was sold in Cottonwood, within Shasta County limits. Two other 5 out of 5 winning tickets were sold in California; one in Roseville and another in San Bernardino.

The winner matched the white balls 3, 7, 37, 49, 55 and the gold Mega Ball 6. The identity of the winner was not immediately known.

The total amount of the Mega Millions jackpot would only be distributed to a winner who chooses an annuity paid over 29 years. Nearly all grand prize winners opt to take a cash payout, which for Friday night’s drawing is an estimated $549.7 million.

Despite the game’s long odds of 1 in 302.6 million, players continued to purchase tickets as the size of the grand prize grew. Until Friday, the last time a Mega Millions player hit the top prize was Sept. 10.

The largest-ever Mega Millions jackpot ticket worth $1.6 billion was sold in Florida in August 2023. Two prizes for its compatriot Powerball lottery have been larger.

Mega Millions and Powerball are sold in 45 states, as well as Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Powerball also is sold in Puerto Rico.

KTVU contributed to this report.

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California

State of California confirms an increase in Social Security payments as of Dec. 30

Published

23 hours ago

December 27, 2024

Press Room

State of California confirms an increase in Social Security payments as of Dec. 30

The State of California has confirmed that Social Security beneficiaries will receive an increase in their payments beginning December 30, 2024. This 2.5% increase is part of the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) applied across the United States for 2025. The COLA is based on inflation rates to ensure beneficiaries maintain their purchasing power.

The December 30, 2024 Payment

The first payment reflecting this increase will be for Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Normally scheduled for January 1, this payment has been moved to December 30 due to the New Year’s Day holiday. This adjustment benefits millions in California and across the country, particularly those who rely on these funds for basic needs.

Types of Social Security Benefits

The Social Security program encompasses several types of benefits, all of which will see the 2.5% increase:

Retirement Benefits: For individuals who have reached retirement age and contributed to the system during their working years.
Disability Insurance (SSDI): For individuals unable to work due to a long-term disability.
Supplemental Security Income (SSI): For low-income individuals, including seniors and people with disabilities.
Survivor Benefits: Payments made to family members of deceased workers.

January 2025 Payment Schedule

Social Security payments are distributed based on the beneficiary’s birthdate. Here is the schedule for January 2025:

January 3: Payments for those who receive benefits before May 1997 or who also receive SSI.
January 8: Beneficiaries born between the 1st and 10th of the month.
January 15: Beneficiaries born between the 11th and 20th of the month.
January 22: Beneficiaries born between the 21st and 31st of the month.

The COLA increase will be reflected in all these payments.

Impact in California and Nationwide

California, home to more than 6 million Social Security beneficiaries, will see a significant impact from this adjustment. However, the increase is a nationwide policy benefiting over 70 million recipients across the United States.

This adjustment aims to ease the financial burden on Americans as they face rising living costs, reinforcing the commitment to support the nation’s most vulnerable citizens.

For more details about your payments, you can visit the official Social Security Administration (SSA) website.

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