Katie O’Connor on Muck Rack

Katie O’Connor

Washington, D.C.
As seen in: Psychiatric News, PLOS, Tobacco Control, Chesterfield Times Dispatch, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Roanoke Times, American Journal of Public Health, PsychiatryOnline, Rewire.News, The Daily Progress, The Free Lance-Star and
Mental health reporter; Senior staff writer at Psychiatric News; past: @MercuryVirginia @RTDNEWS, @theflathat; formerly Demeria; @koconnorreports.bsky.social
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Articles by Katie O’Connor

Tu1568 REPRODUCTIVE CARE DURING PRECONCEPTION AND PREGNANCY IN INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASE (IBD): IMMIGRANT VS. NONIMMIGRANT PERSPECTIVES

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By Vivian Huang, Katie O’Connor
| Gastrointestinal Endoscopy Verified
Also available on ScienceDirect
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‘An Ongoing Journey’: Symposium Encourages Cultural Congruency

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By Katie O’Connor
| PsychiatryOnline
Full access APA & Meetings When Yolanda Lawson, M.D., was a medical student completing her internal medicine rotation, she had an experience that would help shape her career. She stood in a group with her fellow students, surrounding an older, Black patient, while the attending physician described the patient’s management plan for the day. As the team finished up and began to move on, the patient turned to Lawson, who was the only other Black person in the group.
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The ASC takes on ChatGPT | Opinion

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By AJ Johnson, Katie O’Connor, James Turner
| RESEARCH LIVE Verified
At a conference that had artificial intelligence (AI) as a core theme on the agenda, it seemed appropriate to end day one of our recent international Association for Survey Computing (ASC) conference with a fun ChatGPT challenge in the bar of the Student Union at Royal Holloway University. Six teams of conference attendees agreed to take the ChatGPT challenge and pooled their creative talents over a late evening pint or two.
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Qa Research joins EMB Group | News

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By Katie O’Connor
| RESEARCH LIVE Verified
The deal will see Qa Research retain its name, continue to operate in York and be led by the existing senior management team. Qa Research joins EMB Group’s other research agencies, Blue Marble Research and Pye Tait Consulting, and brings the number of people working in the research division of the business to more than 60.
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Will researchers learn to use their powers before it's too late? | Opinion

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By Katie O’Connor, James Turner
| RESEARCH LIVE Verified
The ASC’s 8th International Conference, called The Power to Transform Research, was a two-day event held at the Royal Holloway, University of London. It gathered experts from across the insights industry to explore how technology, data, and adept researchers who use them are shaping the future of business growth. Here are my top takeaways from the conference. Connected data will fuel transformation Data is like the fuel for insights. But right now, it’s scattered all over the place.
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Can Positive Emotions Be Harnessed To Prevent Depression?

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
Since he entered the field of psychiatry, Jess Shatkin, M.D., M.P.H., has learned that psychiatry typically focuses on what’s wrong with patients.
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Diagnosing Mental Illnesses in Youth Requires Unraveling Irritability, Says Expert

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
Irritability and disruptive behaviors are some of the most common reasons that youth are referred to child and adolescent psychiatrists. When kids talk about these behaviors, they often refer to them as “a storm in their brains,” said Janet Wozniak, M.D., at APA’s 2024 Annual Meeting. Yet there remains a gap in knowledge on how to confidently assess and diagnose children with irritability, emotional dysregulation, and disruptive behaviors.
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Federal Government Approves New Rules to Protect LGBTQ+ Individuals

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
The Biden administration has taken several steps to protect LGBTQ+ individuals in health care and schooling. On April 26, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a final rule reinstating and strengthening the nondiscrimination provisions of Section 1557 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. That was preceded by a final rule under Title IX, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance.
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APA’s Government, Policy, and Advocacy Update (July 2024)

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
Illinois Passes Legislation to Boost Patient Access to MH Care, Cut M.D.’s Prior Authorization Burdens As of press time, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) was expected to sign into law legislation to increase access to care for those undergoing mental health or substance use disorder (SUD) treatment. Specifically, the legislation bans the use of step therapy requirements in both prescription drug plans and SUD treatment.
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APA Members Urge Congress To Protect Telehealth Access

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By Katie O’Connor, Linda M. Richmond
| Psychiatric News
In May, Shabana Khan, M.D., arrived in Washington, D.C., for a congressional briefing on telehealth. She already had appointments with patients scheduled, but she did not have to cancel them. Instead, she conducted the appointments via telehealth.
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Why Are Youth Who Visit EDs for Self-Harm Difficult to Detect?

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
More than 1 in 3 young people who died by suicide had a health care visit in the month before their deaths. Nearly 9 in 10 had a visit in the previous year. Juliet Edgcomb, M.D., Ph.D., called these facts tragic during a recent Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF) webinar. But she also pointed out that these statistics offer some hope.
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Ketamine Study Prioritizes Equitable Enrollment

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
Though the number of for-profit ketamine clinics has surged over the past several years, the research behind ketamine’s efficacy and safety when delivered intravenously for psychiatric disorders is lacking. Yet with approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), esketamine, delivered as a nasal spray (Spravato), boasts a voluminous body of data backing up its effectiveness for treatment-resistant depression (TRD).
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APA’s Government, Policy, and Advocacy Update (June 2024)

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
APA Urges HHS, FCC To Require Georouting For 988 Calls The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline became available nationwide in 2022, and since then millions of people in crisis have been connected with help and support. However, advocates have pointed to a limitation in the 988 system: Calls to 988 are routed to a crisis call center based on the caller’s area code, rather than physical location.
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Briefing Highlights Importance of Minority Fellowship Program

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
Sherry Molock, Ph.D., an associate professor of clinical psychology at George Washington University, said that her participation in the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) Minority Fellowship Program from 1979 to 1982 was “one of the crowning jewels of my career.” Administered by eight grantee organizations, including APA, the Minority Fellowship Program provides a one-year fellowship to master’s-level or postgraduate students who plan to work to improve...
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Study Finds Few Hospitals Implement Evidence-Based Suicide Prevention Practices

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
The Joint Commission accredits about 3,800, or 80%, of hospitals in the United States. These hospitals are required to maintain postdischarge suicide prevention policies for patients who are identified at risk of suicide. Yet little is known about the extent to which hospitals have adopted some of the most comprehensive, evidence-based practices to prevent suicide after discharge, explained Scott Williams, Psy.D., director of the Joint Commission’s Department of Research.
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APA’s Government, Policy, and Advocacy Update (May 2024)

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
Over 150 Medical Organizations Request Funding for AHRQ Members of Friends of the Agency for Health Research and Quality (AHRQ) sent a letter to House and Senate leaders requesting no less than $500 million funding for AHRQ in fiscal year 2025. APA is one of 173 members of Friends of AHRQ that signed the letter. AHRQ “supports research to improve health care quality, reduce costs, advance patient safety, decrease medical errors, and broaden access to essential services,” the letter stated.
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Psychiatrist Helps Lead Historic Crisis Services Investment

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
In 2021, as the country was gearing up for the rollout of the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, a brief titled “Psychiatric Leadership in Crisis Systems” was published that outlined the important role that psychiatrists should play as crisis service medical directors.
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GAP Forest Aims to Offset Carbon Emissions

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
For the leaders of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (GAP), in-person, biannual meetings are critical to the organization’s work as a think tank with a goal of advancing psychiatric practice. Yet GAP also responds to the current problems facing psychiatry and society at large, including climate change. The group has wrestled with the fact that having members travel to twice-yearly meetings from across the country adds a significant amount of carbon into the atmosphere.
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Comic Book Series Tells Story of Teen Seeking MH Treatment

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
When Ethan Sacks’s daughter, Naomi Sacks, was hospitalized with severe depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation, he would spend a lot of time sitting in the hospital’s cafeteria, waiting for visiting hours to start so he could see her. “It was a very rough time, and we didn’t know as much as we do now about the mental health journeys people go on,” he said. “I was dealing with all the guilt and nervousness that you would expect from a parent in that situation.
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Conference Series Highlights Experiences of Black Youth

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
When some staff members on an inpatient psychiatric unit learned that a patient, Cristina, was being readmitted, some rolled their eyes and others groaned. “Any chance we can block the admission?” one asked wryly. A child and adolescent psychiatrist who was new to managing the hospital and had never met Cristina (not her real name) overheard the conversation.
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Poor Quality Sleep in Midlife Linked to Poor Cognition 11 Years Later

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
The relationship between sleep and cognition has been a popular research topic in recent years, and studies have shown that there is a link between dementia and poor sleep. The direction of that association—whether poor sleep is a risk factor for dementia or dementia symptoms cause poor sleep—has been harder for researchers to determine, explained Yue Leng, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, Weill Institute for Neurosciences.
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Canada Honors APA Member for Groundbreaking Work

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
When Bruce G. Pollock, M.D., Ph.D., was a resident in Toronto at what is now the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), the psychoanalytic model of care was predominant. One of his patients at the time was a young woman who was not responding to desipramine. Even at the smallest doses, she complained that she was experiencing intense side effects. Pollock’s supervisor labeled the patient “hysterical,” but Pollock sent a sample of the patient’s blood to the United States for testing.
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APA’s Government, Policy, and Advocacy Update (April 2024)

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
APA Staff Urge CMS to Make Telehealth Flexibilities Permanent Recently, APA staff spoke with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) staff to request that they make the telehealth flexibilities introduced during the COVID-19 public health emergency permanent. On January 29, APA staff joined 11 other organizations on a call with CMS.
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In Addressing Maternal Mortality, Mental Health Often Left Out

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
In 2022, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published data from 36 maternal mortality review committees (MMRCs). Deaths by suicide, overdoses, and other deaths determined by the MMRCs to be related to mental health conditions were far and away the leading underlying cause of pregnancy-related deaths (deaths that occur during pregnancy or within one year postpartum). Mental health conditions were the underlying cause of 23% of pregnancy-related deaths from 2017 to 2019.
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Federal Government Issues New Rule on SUD Records

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
Over a year since proposing changes to the rule that regulates the confidentiality of substance use disorder (SUD) records, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released its final rule, which better aligns the rule with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
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Experts Explore How to Encourage Participation in Public Insurance

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has convened a committee of experts to study the challenges that patients face in accessing high-quality behavioral health care through Medicare, Medicaid, and Marketplace Health Insurance programs. The committee is focused specifically on workforce issues and what incentivizes or disincentivizes behavioral health professionals from participating in these public insurance programs.
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Trauma-Focused CBT, Racial Socialization Build Resilience in Black Youth

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
Early on in her therapy sessions with Ashley Dandridge, Psy.D., a 14-year-old Black patient told Dandridge: “I didn’t know race or racism was something that we could talk about in therapy.” Previous outpatient clinicians had never spoken with Sarah (not her real name) about her identity as a Black girl, racism, or racial stressors. Dandridge worked with Sarah to address the racism she encountered in daily life and some of the traumatic experiences she had experienced at home.
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Magnetic Seizure Therapy Found as Effective as ECT

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
For years, many have hoped that magnetic seizure therapy (MST) could become a promising clinical alternative to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), successfully treating patients with severe depression with fewer side effects. Research is still underway to see if MST delivers on that promise, and a new study has taken the research one step further. In the largest trial to date comparing MST and ECT, Sarah H.
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Survey Finds Illicit Drug Use Among Youth Declining While Overdose Deaths Rise

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
After the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated school closures began in 2020, youth reported that they were using illicit substances significantly less, according to the 2023 Monitoring the Future survey. Among 12th graders, use of any illicit substances in the previous year fell from 36.8% in 2020 to 32% in 2021. Among 10th graders, the rate fell from 30.4% to 18.7%, while it fell from 15.6% to 10.2% among 8th graders.
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APA’s Government, Policy, and Advocacy Update (March 2024)

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
Federal Government Makes Telehealth Buprenorphine Prescribing Permanent On February 2, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration issued a final rule that permanently allows patients to begin treatment with buprenorphine via telehealth. The rule also allows for increased flexibility related to methadone take-home doses, reducing the number of times patients must visit clinics.
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In Washington State, Psychiatrists Firmly Back Patient Safety

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
During a recent hearing held by Washington state’s Senate Committee on Health and Long-Term Care, APA President Petros Levounis, M.D., M.A., emphasized that protecting patient safety must be paramount in legislators’ minds when they are considering changing laws related to the medical profession. Allowing psychologists to prescribe medications, he argued, would indeed jeopardize patient safety.
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As Psychedelic Research Advances, Can Youth Benefit?

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
As research on psychedelics has accelerated, the drugs have increasingly been spotlighted in the media. “There’s a lot of excitement and enthusiasm about the potential for psychedelics to transform the treatment of psychiatric and substance use disorders, or even just to improve overall well-being,” said Tiffany Farchione, M.D., director of the Division of Psychiatry in the Office of Neuroscience at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
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Acclaimed Public Interest Lawyer and Best-Selling Author to Present Plenary Address

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
Social justice activist, lawyer, and author Bryan Stevenson, J.D., M.P.P., will be a plenary speaker at the 2024 APA Annual Meeting in New York City. He will present a lecture in the ongoing series titled “Emerging Voices: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging.” A world-renowned public interest lawyer, Stevenson has devoted his career to criminal justice reform and defending condemned prisoners, juvenile offenders, and people who were wrongly convicted.
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Work Group Develops New Resources to Support IMG Members

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
International medical graduates (IMGs) play an important role in the field of psychiatry. Those residing in the United States often work in the public sector and are more likely to accept Medicaid and Medicare. They are also more likely to work in medically underserved and health professional shortage areas. The long path to becoming a psychiatrist in this country is not easy for IMGs, however.
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Psychiatric Prescriptions Rise Among Youth With Type 1 Diabetes

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
Children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes are at an elevated risk for psychiatric disorders, but treatment with psychotropic medications can cause adverse effects in this patient population. A study in JAMA Network Open has found that the prevalence of youth receiving these medications increased dramatically in Sweden from 2006 to 2019.
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Medical Student-Run Clinic Supports Those Seeking Asylum

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
During her most recent medical evaluation of an individual seeking asylum in the United States, Rebecca Martin, M.D., conducted the interview while the client was waiting for a bus. “It was running late,” Martin said.
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Movement Aims to Reconnect Children With Nature

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
When Nooshin Razani, M.D., M.P.H., was raising her two small children and working as a fellow in San Francisco, she found that both she and her children felt their best when they were outside. Without extended family nearby and with children with special needs, being outside offered a reprieve from everyday struggles. Outdoor activities were hugely important for Razani’s kids. Yet it did not come without its challenges.
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How to Incorporate Informed Consent in Gender-Affirming Care

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
Patients in the gender diverse community often face significant mental health disparities, with higher rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide attempts. With this in mind, and considering the often immense barriers to care these patients face, experts at APA’s Mental Health Services Conference urged attendees to use the informed consent model, the gold standard for most interventions, when working with these patients.
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Broaching Race, Ethnicity Can Build Patients’ Trust

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
When Norma Day-Vines, Ph.D., asked one of her patients about his experiences as a gay, Black man with a strong sense of faith who may not always feel welcome in his church, the patient opened up immediately. “To be honest, that’s something I’m still navigating,” he told her. He eventually explained that maintaining a strong spiritual connection has been helpful to him, as well as relying on friends who share some of his identities.
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Psychiatrists Have Opportunities to Help Build Crisis Systems

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
There are many areas of disagreement in Congress and across the nation right now. But one thing that everyone pretty much agrees on is that it does not make sense for law enforcement officers to be the default first responders to mental health crises, said Margaret Balfour, M.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson.
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APA’s Toolkit Encourages Reporters to Reject AAPI Stereotypes

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
As a fourth-generation San Franciscan, William Wong, M.D., grew up hearing firsthand about the systemic racism that three generations of his Chinese American family experienced. Their lives were deeply impacted by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which banned Chinese laborers from immigrating to the United States, and the Page Act of 1875, which prohibited Chinese women from entering the country. In 2020, he saw a new wave of Asian American–directed racism sweep the country.
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Relative increases in direct-to-consumer menthol ads following 2020 FDA guidance on flavoured e-cigarettes

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By Elizabeth K Do, Katie O’Connor, Megan Diaz, Barbara A. Schillo
| Tobacco Control Verified
Abstract Objective To examine potential changes in email and direct mail advertisements for flavoured e-cigarettes following the 2020 Food and Drug Administration (FDA) flavour guidance. Methods Digital copies of e-cigarette advertisements were obtained from Mintel Comperemedia (November 2019–May 2020) and coded for the presence of flavours. Χ2 tests were used to determine changes in the prevalence of email and direct mail advertisements for e-cigarettes with menthol, non-menthol and no flavours.
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Should Psychiatrists Advocate Banning Screens From Kids’ Bedrooms?

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
Numerous studies have established a strong link between evening screen time and poor sleep quality. Yet should that association result in guidance from a child and adolescent psychiatrist, urging families to institute blanket bans on screens in bedrooms? That question was debated yesterday at this year’s American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry’s (AACAP) annual meeting in New York City by members of AACAP’s Media Committee.
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Are Buprenorphine Doses Too Low?

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
If patients were prescribed antibiotics at too-low doses, it would be obvious that they had little chance of successful treatment. The same is true for patients with opioid use disorder, said Smita Das, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., chair of APA’s Council on Addiction Psychiatry. “If we don’t sufficiently treat these patients at least per guideline dosing, we may be setting them up for failure,” she said. Underprescribing of buprenorphine has long been concerning, Das said.
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One-Third of Teens Have Parent With Anxiety or Depression

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
Numerous studies have confirmed the significant impact that parental mental health has on the mental health of their children, yet the importance of that connection is often overlooked, said Anish Dube, M.D., M.P.H., chair of APA’s Council on Children, Adolescents, and Their Families. A recent report emphasized the interconnectedness of a parent and child’s mental well-being and called for more guidance for parents to address the issue with their teens.
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New Resource Spotlights Maternal Mental Health

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
Suicide and fatal drug overdoses are the leading causes of death for childbearing people in the year after delivery, yet finding mental health care while pregnant often represents an insurmountable hurdle. Obstetricians frequently do not want to treat patients for mental illness, while mental health professionals often feel unequipped to treat patients during pregnancy.
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Bill Aims to Bolster Local Response to Community Trauma Following Natural Disaster

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
The increasing rate and severity of natural disasters are undeniable, and they unfortunately carry significant mental health consequences, said Joshua Wortzel, M.D., M.Phil., chair of APA’s Committee on Climate Change and Mental Health. Yet new legislation would attempt to address the nation’s ongoing mental health crisis by addressing the community trauma caused by natural disasters.
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Government Proposes New Rules to Strengthen Parity Law

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
Abstract The Biden administration’s proposal would place new requirements on health plans to ensure they are in compliance with the 2008 federal parity law.
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Social Intercourse: August 2

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By Katie O'Connor, Katie O’Connor
| The Gateway Verified
In our biweekly column Social Intercourse, we share our picks for notable things happening on campus and in Edmonton. Check out all these amazing local events! What: 杞子茶屋 Goji Berries Tearoom When: August 3 until September 17, Wednesday through Sunday 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Where: Reed’s Bazaar, Fort Edmonton Park Admission: $26.20 for adults This new exhibition at Fort Edmonton Park shows visitors the significance of goji berries in Edmonton.
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MH Experts Urge Congress to Act on Maternal Mortality

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By Katie O’Connor
| Psychiatric News
Abstract During a Congressional briefing, experts outlined the significant role that mental and substance use disorders play in maternal mortality. They also pointed to actions Congress can take now to address the problem. Over the past two decades, the maternal death rate in the United States has more than doubled.
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