More than half of Americans have reported seeking help for mental health services at some point in their lives, but the quality of support available remains insufficient. We examine the cause of rising mental health hospital visits and what can be done to improve accessibility to these services.
A rising trend
In 2018, suicide became the second leading cause of death for all children and young people between 10-24. As urgent as this was at the time, it was also prior to the arrival of COVID-19.
Throughout the pandemic of 2020, the number of mental health-related hospital visits rose exponentially. For instance, there was a 24% increase from March to October of 2020 for children ages 5-11 who visited the emergency room for mental health concerns. For teenagers ages 12-17, mental health visits to the emergency room steadily increased by 31%. As for suicide attempts, those increased by over 50% for girls by 2021.
One report in particular from the World Health Organization (WHO) stated that the 2020 pandemic negatively affected mental health services in 93% of countries worldwide. Still, while the world saw their mental health services slow down, the demand for those services grew.
Three renowned organizations for children, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACP), and the Children’s Hospital Association, declared a national emergency regarding children’s mental health towards the end of 2021, showing how mental health services are still unacceptable and explaining why we can expect the amount of mental health-related crises continue to go up.
The three organizations urged changes from policymakers, all of them involving an overall improvement of accessibility, which would successfully address the mental health emergency the nation was (and still is) experiencing:
- More federal funding so that low-income families have better opportunities to access mental health care.
- More accessibility to telehealth.
- School-based mental health care models to increase access for school-aged children.
- Integration of mental health care in primary care.
- Advocacy for a reduction in the risk of suicide for young people.
- Funding to community-based systems of mental health care.
- Services that are trauma-based so victims can receive personalized care.
- Solutions for known shortages to ensure that rural children (and other children) have access to mental health resources.
- Policies that comply with mental health parity laws.
What can we expect?
If the numbers reported by the CDC are accurate, we are failing our children. Poor accessibility to mental health services only perpetuates a problem that not only can be addressed but will continue to be exacerbated if it is not.
Our inability to address mental health issues among our youth has led to increases in drug and alcohol dependency, inflated rates of imprisonment, and lower standards of living.
At the rate we are going, we will never become a healthy society. Lawmakers have worked frantically to address this issue, with dozens (if not hundreds) of proposals making their way through congress every year − but in large part, those efforts fall short. While we know that improved access to mental health care does many things, including reducing recidivism and substance abuse, the question is: do we as a Nation care?
Comments