Health | WPN World People News

Use of cigarettes, alcohol, and abuse of prescription pain relievers among teens has declined since 2013 while marijuana use rates were stable, according to the 2014 Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey, released Tuesday by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). However, use of e-cigarettes, measured in the report for the first time, is high.

Ambulance depot near an emergency response centre, in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Ambulances and drivers have to be disinfected after each trip carrying suspected Ebola cases.

New diagnostic tests to more rapidly and simply detect Ebola could be available for use in the West Africa epidemic in the next few months, the World Health Organization and partner agencies say.

Many patients with first-episode psychosis receive medications that do not comply with recommended guidelines for first-episode treatment , researchers have found. Current guidelines emphasize low doses of antipsychotic drugs and strategies for minimizing the side effects that might contribute to patients stopping their medication. A study finds that almost 40 percent of people with first-episode psychosis in community mental health clinics across the country might benefit from medication treatment changes.

U.S. Army soldiers hospitalized with a psychiatric disorder have a significantly elevated suicide risk in the year following discharge from the hospital, according to research from the Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers (Army STARRS ). The yearly suicide rate for this group, 263.9 per 100,000 soldiers, was far higher than the rate of 18.5 suicides per 100,000 in the Regular Army for the same study period, the study found.