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About 49,500 people took their own lives last year in the U.S., the highest number ever, according to new government data posted Thursday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which posted the numbers, has not yet calculated a suicide rate for the year, but available data suggests suicides are more common in the U.S. than at any time since the dawn of World War II. (Stobbe, 8/11)

"Mental health has become the defining public health and societal challenge of our time," said Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy in a statement. "Far too many people and their families are suffering and feeling alone." "These numbers are a sobering reminder of how urgent it is that we further expand access to mental health care, address the root causes of mental health struggles, and recognize the importance of checking on and supporting one another," Murthy added. (Singh, 8/11)

Federal regulators have suspended research on human subjects at the Columbia-affiliated New York State Psychiatric Institute, one of the country’s oldest research centers, as they investigate safety protocols across the institute after the suicide of a research participant. A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Kate Migliaccio-Grabill, confirmed on Wednesday that the agency’s Office for Human Research Protections was investigating the psychiatric institute “and has restricted its ability to conduct H.H.S.-supported human subject research.” (Barry, 8/10)

After her teenage daughter attempted suicide and began to cycle through emergency rooms and mental health programs during the past three years, Sarah Delarosa noticed her own health also declined. She suffered from mini strokes and stomach bleeding, the mother of four in Corpus Christi, Texas, said. To make things worse, her daughter's failing behavioral and mental health caused Delarosa to miss hours from her job as a home health aide, losing out on income needed to support her family. (Rayasam, 8/9)

During the pandemic summers, many camp directors say, campers arrived with mental issues of a severity they had not seen before, exceeding the capacity of counselors in their teens and 20s. Kelly Rossebo, the director of Camp Eagle Ridge in Mellen, Wis., recalled a single night in 2021 when she and her mental-health specialist “tag-teamed back and forth” for hours, addressing problems that included suicidal ideation, eating disorders and binge drinking. (Barry, 8/6)

Erin Brooker Lozott has worked in the field of autism and mental health for 29 years. She answers calls from people in crisis every day. But she never expected the call to come from someone in her own family. “When that happens to somebody that you care about, it doesn’t matter how well trained you are,” she said. Before last year, Lozott said it would have been harder for her to help that family member. But with the new 988 number for the National Suicide and Crisis Hotline, she has options. (Moorehead, 8/10)

If you’re sending a kid off to college, it makes sense to experience a mixture of excitement and worry — about their leaving home, sleeping enough and making friends but also the mental health crisis on many college campuses. But I find most parents and guardians  aren’t aware that this crisis includes eating disorders — which are serious, life-threatening mental illnesses characterized by a disturbance in one’s relationship with food, exercise and/or body size. (Hanson, 8/10)