Despite a global decline in suicide rates, the USA has witnessed a concerning rise in suicide mortality over the past two decades.

This study aims to elucidate the changing patterns of suicide mortality in the USA from 1999 to 2019, with a particular focus on gender and racial differences.

We utilised national mortality data for causes of suicide (X60–X84, Y87.0) from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 1999–2019. The age–period–cohort analysis was conducted to explore the effects of age, period and birth cohort effects on suicide mortality by gender and race.

Between 1999 and 2019, the suicide rate and the number of suicides in the USA increased 33% and 62%, respectively. We discerned an emerging peak of suicide among young adult populations even as increases affected nearly all groups. Females have shown increasing period risk, which has exceeded that of males since 2011. Their cohort risk, which slowly increased and exceeded males in post-1959 cohorts, exhibited a steep J-shaped pattern, especially among those born after 1977. Although Americans of all races have experienced increased period risk since 2011, it was highest among American Indians and Alaska Natives by the end of the 20-year span. With the mortality risk increasing rapidly in all post-1959 cohorts, the risk showed an obvious cliff-shaped pattern among the Asian/Pacific Islander population born after 1989.

The shifting burden of suicide mortality towards younger populations, transcending gender and racial boundaries, underscores the need for the implementation of tailored public health strategies.

To examine the effectiveness of Self-Help Plus (SH+) as an intervention for alleviating stress levels and mental health problems among healthcare workers.

This was a prospective, two-arm, unblinded, parallel-designed randomised controlled trial. Participants were recruited at all levels of medical facilities within all municipal districts of Guangzhou. Eligible participants were adult healthcare workers experiencing psychological stress (10-item Perceived Stress Scale scores of ≥15) but without serious mental health problems or active suicidal ideation. A self-help psychological intervention developed by the World Health Organization in alleviating psychological stress and preventing the development of mental health problems. The primary outcome was psychological stress, assessed at the 3-month follow-up. Secondary outcomes were depression symptoms, anxiety symptoms, insomnia, positive affect (PA) and self-kindness assessed at the 3-month follow-up.

Between November 2021 and April 2022, 270 participants were enrolled and randomly assigned to either SH+ (n = 135) or the control group (n = 135). The SH+ group had significantly lower stress at the 3-month follow-up (b = −1.23, 95% CI = −2.36, −0.10, p = 0.033) compared to the control group. The interaction effect indicated that the intervention effect in reducing stress differed over time (b = −0.89, 95% CI = −1.50, −0.27, p = 0.005). Analysis of the secondary outcomes suggested that SH+ led to statistically significant improvements in most of the secondary outcomes, including depression, insomnia, PA and self-kindness.

This is the first known randomised controlled trial ever conducted to improve stress and mental health problems among healthcare workers experiencing psychological stress in a low-resource setting. SH+ was found to be an effective strategy for alleviating psychological stress and reducing symptoms of common mental problems. SH+ has the potential to be scaled-up as a public health strategy to reduce the burden of mental health problems in healthcare workers exposed to high levels of stress.

A number of studies with conflicting results have examined the familiality of schizophrenia syndromes in Western populations.

The objective of this study was to determine, using clinical data from concordant sibling pairs, whether symptom dimensions and other clinical characteristics of schizophrenia show familial aggregation and are therefore potentially useful traits in genetic studies.

We measured clinical and demographic features, and symptom dimensions of schizophrenia in 137 families from China who had two or more affected members with schizophrenia. Within-sibling pair correlation was assessed with intraclass correlation coefficient and kappa statistics.

Global functioning, positive, disorganisation and dysphoric symptoms, premorbid schizotypal and schizoid traits, premorbid social adjustment, type and age at illness onset all showed significant evidence of familial aggregation. DSM–IV schizophrenia subtypes were also found to be familial.

This is the first study in a large non-European population to confirm that schizophrenia dimensions and clinical characteristics show significant familiality, implying possible heritability. This supports their use in the delineation of homogeneous subsets for future genetic studies.