2022 State of Mental Health Report Shows Shocking Lack of Access to Care
The report is available to download in full, or you can skim some of the statistics. As you do though, pay special attention to the section on Access to Care, where you’ll learn things like the fact that over 27 million people in the US with some sort of mental health issue did not get any treatment. None. Not a bit. Even in the best state for matching treatment with patients, Vermont, almost 43% of people did not get care.
27 million people go without any mental health treatment for their issues.
Over 5 million have no insurance coverage for treatment.
Over 60% of youths with major depression went without treatment. That’s over 2 million kids.
We lack the resources to get treatment for everyone who needs it. We lack the willpower to do more than paper over this reality. So what do we do?
For one, we keep raising this issue over and over again until we get a whole lot more than cliché answers. We keep talking about it and demanding more until everyone involved, the government, the mental healthcare and health insurance industries, the therapists, social workers, and the patients start working toward a better system.
Clearly, the system we have isn’t working.