Nearly 1 in 4 young adults in US treated for MH during pandemic, CDC survey finds

Abstract

The share of U.S. adults who received treatment for mental health grew throughout the COVID‐19 pandemic, according to data published Sept. 7 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), CNN reported. Nearly 22% of adults got mental health treatment in 2021, up from about 19% in 2019. This jump is probably due to a combination of increased need and better access to treatment, said Calliope Holingue, a psychiatric epidemiologist and member of Johns Hopkins University's COVID‐19 Mental Health Measurement Working Group. “The pandemic has spurred an important conversation about the need to take care of ourselves. In the population as a whole, we're seeing that reflected,” she said. Overall, the CDC report found that the increase in mental health treatment was driven largely by adults under age 45. Adults ages 18 to 44 were the least likely group to have received treatment for mental health in 2019 but became the most likely in 2021. Nearly 1 in 4 adults (more than 23%) in this age group received treatment for mental health in 2021, a jump of nearly 5% from 2019. “This young adult group is encountering the pandemic at a very vulnerable life stage. It's the stage at which disorders such as anxiety disorders and depression are at one of their highest levels across the life course,” Holingue said. “So there is this sort of natural vulnerability there, at the same time that the pandemic is happening.”