For the past couple of weeks I’ve been hearing about “NOvember” campaigns such as “putting the ‘no’ in ‘November’” and “The NOvember Challenge.” There are a few different versions of the campaign, but essentially it is a call to say “no” to unhealthy/unenjoyable/non-enriching requests and habits. Although this call to action has been around for years, it’s suddenly become relevant to me
Recently we hosted a webinar titled “CDP Presents: Debunking Common Misperceptions about Sleep Interventions” that addressed how as behavioral health professionals we can critically evaluate the regular barrage of claims we hear about sleep “tips” and products. I say critically not necessarily in a pejorative sense – that is, as a disapproval although that may end up being the case – but rather in the sense of approaching claims with a consistent evaluative framework. This kind of approach allows us to compare claims against scientific knowledge and evidence.
Depending on your worldview, you may either struggle with the theory of Racial Battle Fatigue or be keenly aware of it. However, if you are a mental health practitioner, researcher, or advocate, then your profession almost certainly mandates not only your awareness of both mental health trends and scholarly research, but the implementation of evidenced-based interventions, despite personal convictions that may arise.
Military families continue to increase in diversity, a fact that is not always well-studied or represented in research studies and the resources and policies that they influence. This blog shares information from a recent review of research studies that examined how military families are defined and represented in mental health and substance abuse research.
Alcohol use disorder within families is a topic with potential impact across subpopulations and is not specific to the population of military families. In fact, although reviews of research suggest that there may be a higher incidence of problematic drinking in some segments (but not all) of the military, the highest rates of problematic drinking seem to be observed in military populations that are inconsistent with military families with children (as factors related to higher rates include those who are single and do not have children; Osborne et al., 2022). Even more explicitly, I’m not aware of any studies which have noted a heightened prevalence of problematic drinking in military families with children versus civilian families with children.