MDNews - Long Island

PEOPLE IN THE NEWS Northwell Health President and CEO Michael J. Dowling Northwell Health President and CEO Michael J. Dowling, who leads the largest healthcare provider and private employer in New York State, has been named to Modern Healthcare magazine's "100 Most Influential People in Healthcare," ranking third overall. In Modern Healthcare's 2021 list, Dowling ranked highest among 25 healthcare system or hospital CEOs nationwide. This year, Albert Bourla, Chair and CEO of Pfizer Biopharmaceuticals, ranked first and Stephane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, ranked second. National leaders ranked in this year's list include Anthony Fauci, MD, Director, Chief Medical Advisor to the President of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (No. 20), President Joe Biden (No. 34) and Xavier Becerra, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (No. 59). Last year, Dowling ranked second on the healthcare magazine's annual list, only after frontline workers who were named first. Dowling's innovation, leadership and strong stance on social issues such as gun violence as a public health crisis as well as immigration, racial justice and the opioid epidemic, have also contributed to him earning a place on Modern Healthcare's prestigious list for the 15th consecutive year. The health system recently held its third annual conference on gun violence Dec. 15, 2021, with prominently known physicians, government officials and a family member whose loved one died because of gun violence. In addition, Northwell established a Center for Equity Care, funded a $1.3 million employee innovation challenge encouraging development of new processes and initiatives to improve health care, and implemented a broad range of employee health programs that engaged tens of thousands of staff. Modern Healthcare's list includes the nation's most prominent healthcare CEOs, elected officials and government administrators. In 2020, Dowling authored "Leading Through a Pandemic: The Inside Story of Humanity, Innovation, and Lessons Learned During the COVID-19 Crisis," a book which continues to offer guidance to healthcare leaders on how to avoid the spread of future viral illness. His vision and crisis management expertise helped manage the first coronavirus surge in New York City, establish one of the nation's most state-of-the-art testing centers at Northwell Health Labs, innovate new ways to alleviate supply shortages and utilize the entire integrated health system to improve patient care. Jessica Schleider, PhD A study of more than 2,400 adolescents ages 13 to 16 shows two online, single-session interventions designed to help curb teen depression work, a tool very much needed given a rise in teen depression and loss of some in-person mental health services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Led by Jessica Schleider, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Stony Brook University, the study findings are published in Nature Human Behaviour. Teenagers who experience depression symptoms often cannot access professional help. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, it is estimated less than half of adolescents/teenagers with depression access help. One recent study suggested that childhood and adolescent anxiety and depression doubled during the first year of the pandemic. For this study, adolescents experiencing elevated depressive symptoms participated in one of two online single-session interventions (SSI), the first teaching "behavioral activation" (the idea that taking positive action can boost your mood), and the second teaching "growth mindset" (the idea that depression symptoms and personal traits are changeable). They were recruited for the study via social media (Instagram) and came from all 50 U.S. states. Schleider explains that before the pandemic there was a need for more accessible avenues to treatment and mental health support for teens with mental health challenges. She and colleagues wanted to test whether single-session, online and free-of-charge interventions could significantly reduce depression in teens who were struggling. They created a control, "placebo" SSI, and two skills-based SSIs: the behavioral activation program and the growth mindset program. She and colleagues tested three-month outcomes measuring depression, hopelessness, generalized anxiety, COVID-19-related trauma and restrictive eating. Their overall results, the authors write, confirm the utility of free-of-charge, online SSIs for high symptom adolescents, even in the high-stress COVID-19 context. The study is a clinical trial sponsored by the National Institutes of Health Office of the Director. Schleider and her colleagues will continue to assess the effectiveness of SSIs for mental health intervention in teens. 1 4

• Cover