Cobb's check-up finds rising mental health and addiction crisis

Dec. 29—A new report from Cobb's public health authority found in the aftermath of the pandemic, the county is facing rising rates of drug use and mental health struggles.

The community health assessment, prepared every five years by Cobb & Douglas Public Health, is a sort of check-up on the state of the two counties' wellness. This year's is the first since before the pandemic, and the mammoth, 800-page document leaves no stone unturned.

Dr. Janet Memark, CDPH's director, called the report a "snapshot into the health of our community" that gauges the major challenges facing the region, with mental health and addiction being two of the biggest.

Among the most startling revelations is that suicide became the second leading cause of premature death (in numbers of years of life lost) in Cobb during the five-year period surveyed from 2016 to 2020, killing about 13 people per 100,000 residents each year.

The number of "poor mental health days" reported by residents was relatively stable during that time, but began ticking up in 2020.

"One of the things that stood out to me ... is the number of youths that are reporting to be overwhelmed, stressed, with anxiety and depression," said Jazmyn McCloud, CDPH's health equity and community engagement director.

Equally concerning, while hospital visits for mental health problems declined, overall deaths rose particularly in 2019 and 2020 to nearly 16 per 100,000.

Between the stress of the pandemic, loss of jobs and family members, and isolation it brought on, "all of those things led to much higher levels of anxiety and depression, and just a variety of mental health and behavioral health issues," said Lisa Crossman, CDPH's deputy director.

Hand in hand with the mental health crisis is drug use, with drug-related deaths claiming 118 lives from 2016 to 2020. As with mental health struggles, while emergency room visits for overdoses declined during that period, deadly overdoses rose by more than 16%.

Opioid deaths rose statewide by some 70% from 2010 to 2018, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health.

"It was getting a little bit better, but now it seems like it's getting worse again ... This is a problem that has brewing for a while, and it keeps changing its face a little bit," said Memark. "We went from having a prescription drug problem, to ... heroin, and it's now these synthetic opioids that are very, very concerning."

Binge drinking in Cobb is also more prevalent than statewide or nationally, with 17.5% of adults reporting binge drinking in the last 30 days. The highest concentrations were in census tracts around Kennesaw and Vinings.

Memark added that one of CDPH's primary focuses is public information, and the department plans to hold a parent education event soon with local school districts.

"It is frustrating to see a lot of attention on it, but not see it getting better," said Crossman.

Crossman added that education alone won't stem the tide. One of the department's goals is to make naloxone — a drug which can help reverse an opioid overdose, and is sold under the brand name Narcan — more widely available. Crossman flagged that Georgia residents can currently obtain Narcan and fentanyl test strips without a prescription under a standing order from the Department of Public Health.

"The idea is that if someone has an addiction, that you do what you can to keep them alive until they are ready to enter into treatment and recovery," Crossman said. "By making Narcan available with all the police, all the sheriffs (deputies) ... and maybe in the lobby of some of the motels where we're seeing some of the overdoses, that will help reduce some of the deaths."

State Rep. Sharon Cooper, R-east Cobb, who's passed legislation to make Narcan available to first responders, agreed. But she added that the treatment can be prohibitively expensive for some, and in some cases may have to be used more than once for a fentanyl overdose.

"It's not your heroin addict anymore that's dying," said Cooper, who chairs the Health and Human Services Committee in the Georgia House. "Particularly, you'd think of how the people dying are the ones that are doing heroin on the street. Now, it could be anybody. It could be your child, or your brother or your sister."

Crossman said one of the aims of the community health assessment is to help the department figure out where to put its energies.

"Resources are limited, and there's so many needs across the county. So when we do this, it helps us make really data-based decisions on where we're going to focus the resources," said Crossman.

To that end, in the coming year, CDPH will put together a strategic plan to try and put the findings of the report into action. One of the first steps, announced Wednesday, is a matching grant program of up to $25,000 for partners tackling the challenges outlined in the report.

The community health assessment can be found in its entirety at www.cobbanddouglaspublichealth.com/publications/.