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The vast majority of Americans of all ages, races, generations and backgrounds say the US has a mental health crisis.
Nine in 10 Americans in a new poll by CNN and the Kaiser Family Foundation say the country as a whole is facing a crisis on that front, and about half of adults say they’ve experienced a serious mental health crisis in their family.
CNN published a series of articles this week based on the survey about KFF. Read the main report here. And read it from CNN’s polling team on how the poll was conducted.
There is also 988 – the three-digit number anyone can call in a crisis, but which the survey found few people know.
For a broader look at the survey findings, I spoke with Ashley Kirzinger, director of survey methodology at KFF, by email about what we learned from the project. Our conversation is below.
WHAT MATTERS: It’s such a great headline – 90% of Americans believe the US is facing a mental health crisis. Are there many things that 90% of Americans agree on? Also, can we definitively say that these results suggest a difference? Are more people now saying the US is in a mental health crisis?
KIRZINGER: You are absolutely right, normally we talk about how divided the country is and rarely do we have a data point that such a large majority of adults agree on. While we can’t definitively define this as a change because we don’t have a previous comparison question using the exact wording, other data points indicate that there has clearly been a shift in people’s experiences over the past few years. For example, the share of adults reporting symptoms of anxiety or depression in federal survey data has quadrupled during the pandemic. In addition, data from the CDC (US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) has shown that there has been an increase in the number of drug overdose deaths and suicide rates. Many of these trends predate the pandemic, and some of them have worsened. I think these additional data points help explain why such a large majority are now identifying the current situation as a mental health crisis. People are seeing their friends, family members, neighbors and in some cases themselves struggling. With more than half of all adults saying they or a family member has experienced a serious mental health crisis, it makes sense why we have nine in 10 who say the U.S. is facing a crisis.
WHAT MATTERS: What prompted CNN and KFF to undertake this project? What had you seen that made you think it was worth doing?
KIRZINGER: During the Covid-19 pandemic, surveys by both KFF and CNN had shown that there was increased concern about the mental health of both adults and children in the US, both in terms of the toll the pandemic was having on people’s mental health, but also for barriers. for those seeking mental health. Stress and worry about yourself and loved ones getting sick or dying from Covid-19, losing jobs, losing childcare for working parents are just a few examples. Starting in earnest in March 2020, we were finding around half of adults saying that worry and stress from the pandemic was negatively affecting their mental health. And for some groups, such as parents and younger adults, the shares reporting a negative impact were even greater. All of this made both the teams at KFF and CNN interested in doing a project that focused solely on mental health, with a focus on the populations we know were hardest hit by the pandemic.
WHAT MATTERS: But the pandemic is not an overarching theme in the results. Why is she?
KIRZINGER: When we started this project, it focused primarily on the specific stresses of the pandemic, but the truth is for many Americans, the pandemic is now behind them and they are dealing with the normal stressors of everyday life. That said, the worry and concerns that arose during the pandemic have not subsided, and so people must balance returning to work, getting their children back to school while dealing with many of the mental health issues that have emerged over the past two years. . I think that while the survey questions don’t necessarily focus on the pandemic, experiences and concerns from the past two years are definitely influencing how people answered the survey.
WHAT MATTERS: Are there any details or numbers in particular that surprised you?
KIRZINGER: When I started digging into the data, the disproportionate share of young adults who reported negative mental health, anxiety, depression, and difficulty accessing care continued to surprise me. I think the most striking data point is that nearly half (47%) of adults under the age of 30 say there was a time in the past year when they thought they might need mental health services or medication, but they didn’t get them. That shows there’s still a lot of unmet need out there, even as three in 10 adults say they’ve received mental health care in the past year. And when asked why they didn’t get the care or medication they thought they needed, the most cited reason among young adults was the cost of such care.
WHAT MATTERS: There is a real divide in the poll between older and younger Americans. How do younger and older Americans view mental health differently?
KIRZINGER: I’ve already talked about how young adults report more difficulty accessing care; but perceptions of mental health are another difference between younger and older adults. Half of young people say they felt anxious either “always” or “often” in the past year (compared to a third of adults overall), a third describe their mental health or emotional well-being as “only fair” or “poor” (compared to 22% of adults overall), and four in 10 say a doctor or other health care professional has told them they have a mental health condition such as depression or anxiety .The good news is that most younger adults also report that they feel comfortable seeking care for mental health concerns and discussing mental health with their friends or relatives.
WHAT MATTERS: I suppose we don’t ask children themselves about their mental health, but there is real concern in the results about children’s mental health. Do the results suggest that this is more than adults expressing a natural concern for young people?
KIRZINGER: You’re right, this is a survey of US adults, but it includes a large sample of parents who we ask to report on their children’s experiences. And yes, most parents and non-parents alike are concerned about how depression, alcohol or drug use, anxiety, and other mental health struggles are negatively affecting teens in the US. But when we also ask about children’s experiences, parents’ concerns about the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on children and teenagers has been a major theme of many KFF surveys over the past two years. Previous surveys we conducted earlier in the pandemic, when many schools were still in session, suggested virtually that parents whose children attended school online reported more mental health and behavioral problems in their children than those who attended school personally. This new survey finds that around half of parents (47%) say the pandemic has had a negative impact on their child’s mental health, including 17% who say it has had a “major negative impact” and another three in 10 saying there was a “little”. negative impact.” So I think we have evidence that this goes beyond a general level of concern and reflects something that parents are seeing in their children.
WHAT MATTERS: There is almost unanimity on the existence of a mental health crisis, but a divide on how to address it. The country is divided over the role the government should play. There is a divide among adults as to whether calling 911 would help in a situation. What paths does the survey suggest we should take to address this crisis?
KIRZINGER: A quarter of the public say they think calling 911 during a mental health crisis would do more to “hurt” rather than “help” the situation, including three in 10 black adults and four in 10 LGBT adults. Additionally, a greater share of Hispanic adults and uninsured adults report that they would not know who to call if they had a mental health crisis and also say they would not know where to find mental health services . However, when told about the new 988 number, large majorities across all these demographic groups say they would call if they or a loved one were experiencing a mental health crisis. Unfortunately, most adults say they haven’t heard anything about this new hotline.
