Partnership Awarded Grants for 2016 Projects

 

The Partnership is pleased to announce that it been awarded a number of new unrestricted educational grants from Merck to support its 2016 programming.

 

The grants will support the Partnership's continuing work in the areas of clinical practice and engagement of male youth. Among other things, the grants will support updating the web-based Health Provider Toolkit for Adolescent and Young Adult Males, condensation of its contents into a series of practical clinical tools, and activities to engage male youth in their own health care.

 

"These awards will add to our momentum in highlighting the health care needs of adolescent and young adult males," said Dennis Barbour, Partnership President and CEO.  "2016 has already been a productive year for us. With these and other grants we hope to be able to collaborate even more closely with our Partners in reaching our vision."

Black male suicide matters: Facts you should know

Suicide is a sad growing trend among young Black men. Because of the stigma attached to mental health care, in the Black community undiagnosed depressive orders go unnoticed by family and friends. Shockingly the biggest increase is among Black children ages 5 through 11. The latest CDC information shows that suicide among that age and demographic rose from 1.78 to 3.47 per one million. While the suicide rate for White children declined from 1.96 to 1.31 per million. During the four-year study that was completed by the CDC in 2012, there were 41 suicide deaths among black boys, and 73 among white boys. The book Black Suicide: The Tragic Reality of America's Deadliest Secret starkly speaks of this point. Authors Alton R. Kirk and Donna Holland Barnes state, "Only in recent years have Black people begun to recognize that suicide is a major problem for the African-American community. Suicide within this population exists in far greater numbers and for a longer period than many people realize."

Rolling Out, June 5, 2016

Another small American town has been rocked by revelations of sexual abuse at the hands of some of their most protected football stars this week, and local response is sadly much as we've come to expect. According to the  Washington Post , the town of Dietrich, Idaho is "a community on edge" after charges were filed against three high school football players alleged to have sexually assaulted a fellow student. While it's not uncommon for residents to rally around young men with "promising futures" (remember Steubenville?), there is one key difference between this case and most of the ones we hear about - in Dietrich, the victim is a male teammate. He's also an intellectually disabled black male in an overwhelmingly white town. Prior to the assault, he had been subjected to racist bullying. During the assault, the three defendants allegedly inserted and then kicked a coat-hanger into his rectum.

Although they account for half of all new sexually transmitted infections, most young people between the ages of 15 and 25 have never been tested for those infections, according to   a study   published in the May issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health. The 2013 survey of 3,953 adolescents and young adults by researchers at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 11.5 percent had been tested for a sexually transmitted infection in the previous year, including 17 percent of females and 6 percent of males. Overall, young people between 15 and 25 make up a quarter of the population who are sexually experienced. But the survey found that nearly half - 42 percent - of those who had sex and had not been tested for disease thought they were not at risk.

Kaiser Health News, June 3, 2016

Enhanced communication improves HPV vaccination completion rates

Recent research in   Vaccine   identified specific areas which provider-based interventions should focus on, such as improving communication skills regarding adolescent sexuality, in order to improve HPV vaccination completion rates. "If we don't fully vaccinate young people, they don't receive the full protection,"Sharon M. Hudson, PhD,   a researcher in the department of research and evaluation at Kaiser Permanente Southern California, told   Infectious Diseases in Children.   "That is why   it's important for health care systems and providers to do everything we can   to ensure complete vaccination. Our study identified several areas where we can focus efforts to improve vaccine coverage and therefore better protect our patients against these cancers." Study results showed that at both high- and low-performing medical centers, support for HPV vaccination was strong. However, clinicians at higher-performing centers were more likely to use effective communication techniques, such as engaging parents and patients in two-way conversation and acknowledging cultural and practical vaccination barriers. Clinicians from higher-performing centers also were able to recall conversations about sexuality in greater detail, were more likely to describe these conversations as difficult, and they more frequently led to successful vaccination, when compared with clinicians at lower-performing centers.

Helio, June 3, 2016

GPs have renewed calls for boys to receive the HPV vaccine, as pilot schemes to vaccinate men who have sex with men (MSM) at selected GUM and HIV clinics in England get underway. Public Health England (PHE) said the pilots to vaccinate MSM will 'help to determine whether it is possible to establish an appropriate and effective way to deliver the vaccination programme across the country at a later date'. A vaccination programme for girls aged 12-13 has been in place since 2008 to protect them from cervical cancer, genital warts and other cancers. The same scheme is not currently extended to boys, who are considered to receive a herd protection effect as a result of vaccination for girls. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) says it is currently unclear whether a scheme targeting all boys would be cost-effective. It has said it cannot consider approving a scheme until results from two mathematical models determining this are ready by '2017 at the earliest'. But MSM are less likely to receive the herd protection benefits of vaccinating girls, and the JCVI concluded it was 'highly likely' a targeted vaccination programme would be cost-effective late last year.

GP, June 2, 2015

The number of babies born to American teenaged girls fell another 8 percent in 2015, reaching a new record low.  According to the report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, moms aged 15 to 19 accounted for about 22 of every 1,000 live births in 2015 -- down from about 24 per 1,000 the year before.

The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is a national vaccine safety reporting system that collects information about possible side effects that may occur after inoculation. Developed by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and available online, anyone can report possible adverse reactions to vaccines for any reason, making it a rich source of information about possible vaccine harms. Recently, University of Missouri researchers proposed that open communication about VAERS could improve public trust that vaccines are safe, thereby increasing vaccine acceptance. Findings from the study suggest that data and stories may not increase the public's acceptance of vaccines. "Since anyone can report anything to VAERS for any reason, the VAERS reports contain incidents of serious adverse events that may not have anything to do with the vaccine," Scherer said. "We thought that by having people read the actual reports, they would see that there are very few reported serious events, and that the vaccine may not have even caused the event. Taken together, we felt this might make participants feel more assured that vaccines are safe-but in fact, what we found was the opposite." Results showed that participants who were educated about the VAERS system and who were given summary data about adverse events had slightly more vaccine acceptance compared to those who received the vaccine statement alone. However, exposure to detailed incident reports significantly reduced vaccine acceptance and trust in the CDC's declaration that vaccines are safe. "When participants read the incident reports, there was a marked reduction in their willingness to vaccinate-even though most participants believed the vaccines caused few or even none of the deaths," Scherer said.

Medical Express, June 1, 2016

The number of Americans who say they've had sexual activity with someone of the same gender has doubled since the 1970s, a new survey reveals.

And, during the past 40 years, the number of Americans who say they have no problem with same-sex sexual activity has more than quadrupled, the survey showed.  "This data showed strikingly how quickly opinions on same-sex sexuality changed," said study lead author Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University.  The trend, she added, "suggests a fundamental shift in sexual behavior toward more freedom and the abandonment of previously strict social rules against same-sex sexuality."

The findings come from the National Opinion Research Center's General Social Survey, spanning 1973 to 2014. Participants were between 18 and 96 years old.

Medline Plus, June 1, 2016

Though the obesity epidemic affects people of all backgrounds, experts have long noted that black women face a notably higher risk of being overweight or obese than black men.  Now, a new study has identified genetic factors in black men with a strong West African ancestry that are associated with a lower risk of belly fat. But this apparent benefit doesn't extend to black women, regardless of their lineage.

Medline Plus, June 1, 2016

New Zealand: HPV funding "a big step forward" for gay & bi men

Pharmac has announced a proposal to fund human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines for males aged 26 years and younger, a "big step forward" for gay and bisexual men says Dr Peter Saxton who also calls for an extension of this age range for the demographic. " Young gay men who are the group most at risk of developing anal cancer later in life can receive the vaccine without having to disclose their sexuality, which may be unsafe for them, or paying for it themselves at a cost of $500 for three doses", says Saxton.

GayNZ, May 31, 2016

As a female therapist, it can be very difficult for me to work with adolescent boys who are irritable, defensive, and struggling with depression. It is not one of the easiest jobs. Why? Because males tend to have so many layers to their thought patterns and personality that helping them increase awareness of what is happening to them is like trying to help a 2 year old understand that temper tantrums are immature. Men have so many social expectations to overcome and so many personal goals to achieve. Focusing on depression is not something they want to make time for. That's why it is important (as a therapist, a wife, sister, cousin, mother, etc.) that we understand how to help them .

Psych Central (blog)

The Weekly News Roundup is produced by The Partnership for Male Youth and is released every Monday. 

For more information contact Dennis J. Barbour, JD. News Roundup editor and President/CEO of the Partnership, at dbarbour@partnershipformaleyouth.org.