Fast Facts About Mental Health Disorders That Everyone Should Know

It Could Be You

From a recent National Alliance on Mental Illness Voice newsletter, some important points to consider when thinking about people with mental illness and organizations that work to assist them:

• Flip a coin, it could be you: 46% of all people in the United States will be diagnosed with a serious mental illness (SMI) at least once in their life.
• One out of every five community hospital stays involves a primary or secondary diagnosis of mental illness.
• According to the World Health Organization, by 2020 major depressive illness will be the leading cause of disability in the world for women and children.
• The World Health Organization also reports that 4 of the 10 leading causes of disability in the US are mental health disorders.
• Our jails and prisons are now the largest psychiatric wards in the nation, housing well over 350,000 inmates with serious mental illness compared to approximately 70,000 patients living with serious mental illness in hospitals.
• Suicide is the third leading cause of death for American’s youth ages 15-24.  The vast majority of these who die by suicide have a mental illness – often undiagnosed or untreated.
• One in four adults experiences a diagnosable mental disorder in any given year. One in 10 children has a serious mental or emotional disorder.
• Half of all lifetime cases of mental illness begin by age 14, three quarters by age 24. Treating cases early could reduce enormous disability, before mental illnesses become more severe, tragedy or crimal acts strike
• According to a new study by the National Institutes of Mental Health, major mental disorders cost the nation at least $193 billion annually in lost earnings alone.