The US is facing a mental, emotional, and behavioral health pandemic: over 42% of adolescents report feelings of sadness and hopelessness.
Suicide is the 11th leading cause of death in America. It is the second leading cause of death among people ages 10-14, and the third leading cause for ages 15-24. Deaths related to alcohol abuse have risen by 29% over the past 8 years.
Lower-income people and their children, along with rural communities are particularly affected. People from certain ethnic groups, including Blacks, Latinos, Asian Americans and newer immigrants are disproportionately impacted. However, they rarely seek out professional help. Moreover, few resources are available for these communities. Less than 6% of mental health providers are people of color, and fewer still can provide culturally appropriate, in-language support.
Funding for Prevention
The economic cost of managing untreated mental, emotional and behavioral health — MEB — disorders is roughly $282 billion annually. Managing untreated opioid abuse alone costs the nation $21 billion each year.
Earlier this month, the National Association of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released a blueprint to address the nation’s MEB epidemic. Researchers laid out the critical need for additional resources to fund prevention.
Existing infrastructure responds to these crises predominantly with treatment and recovery, or addressing MEB disorders once they already exist. Little infrastructure is devoted to prevention, noted the researchers. Available prevention services are insufficiently funded, and fragmented. They are better developed for substance use prevention, rather than mental health promotion, stated researchers.
Currently, only 3% of MEB funding is devoted to prevention.
Tested Strategies
The NASEM study was requested and funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, under the previous Biden Administration.
”So many of us are touched by people with MEB disorders. And we ask ourselves: ‘what could have been done,’” said Dr. Margaret Kuklinski, director of the Social Development Research Group at the University of Washington’s School of Social Work. “There are tested and effective strategies. We need to ensure they are implemented,” she said at an April 9 press conference introducing the report.
Kuklinski noted there is a dollar returned for every dollar invested in prevention.
Tribal Nations
Marcella Alsan, professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and one of the authors of the study, recommended that the NIH and the CDC should fund more research that targets MEB inequities. SAMHSA could maintain a clearinghouse promoting standards of care. And the White House could provide a central point of contact for MEB prevention, capacity, and coordination.
Alsan also recommended that Congress expand SAMHSA, especially for underserved tribal groups. She called for $14 billion in new funding to the Department of Health and Human Services to support interventions in early life, from birth to 18.
“We must address the scourge of MEB,” said Dr. Marthe Gold, senior research scholar at the New York Academy of Medicine. She noted the current uncertainty at HHS and questioned whether the recommendations in the report would be appropriately funded, if at all.
Expansion of Child Tax Credit
Gold, who was also a contributor to the study, called for an expansion of the Child Tax Credit. She noted that financial stability is a key component of children’s overall sense of well-being.
”If America is to be great again, we need to focus on youth, making them physically and mentally strong and healthy,” said Gold.
