Featured Articles
This chart book presents a collection of data that provides a baseline for answering some questions about how many people in America need and have access to mental health services. This report is a companion to the online interactive data on the MHA website (https://www.mhanational.org/issues/state-mental-health-america). The data and tables include state and national data and sharable infographics. The two spotlights within this report provide a deeper dive into two of Mental Health America’s policy priorities in 2021-2022: suicide prevention and access to crisis care and prevention and early intervention for children, youth, and young adults. The first spotlight, “Suicidal Ideation and 988 Implementation,” discusses the need for states to pass legislation to support a continuum of crisis services. The second spotlight, “Disparities in Mental Health Treatment for Youth of Color,” examines data from SAMHSA’s 2018-2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), to examine disparities in the kinds of care youth with depression are able to receive and where they receive it. Students of color disproportionally access their mental health care at school, often because they don’t have access to specialty mental health services. Given this data, increasing access to school-based mental health services can promote equity and reduce disparities in access to care.
The APA Foundation’s Center for Workplace Mental Health partnered with the Construction Financial Management Association and CSDZ to conduct a 20-question survey on mental health in the construction industry workplace in March 2021. This report presents data from 1,175 respondents throughout the U.S. Overall, results suggest that concern for mental health is high, but willingness to discuss mental health at work is low. The survey findings and report recommendations provide a blueprint for what’s needed to support the mental health and well-being of construction workers. It also offers key insights into how issues are viewed at multiple levels of construction organizations. Organizations across industries increasingly identify addressing mental health and well-being as a top priority given the impact on safety, quality performance, productivity, employee recruitment and retention, and the bottom line. There is growing recognition that people will care about an organization’s strategy when they believe that the organization cares for their well-being.
For decades, providers have recognized the promise of telemedicine for connecting patients outside the medical office to their clinical team members (Lustig, 2012). Telehealth benefits both clients and providers. For clients, especially those in rural areas who live far from their provider, telehealth increases access to care and reduces the client’s travel time (Avey & Hobbs, 2013; Beattie et al., 2009; Uscher-Pines et al., 2020). For clients who have mobility issues, telehealth is a way to receive regular, consistent care in their homes (Choi et al., 2014). For providers, telehealth can make visits more efficient, allowing them to see more patients in a shorter period of time and reducing costs associated with in-person care (Avey & Hobbs, 2013; Boggs et al., 2014). Providers identify other important benefits of telehealth as well, including incorporating therapy into the client’s daily life and being able to gain insight into the client’s living conditions (van der Vaart et al., 2014).
In this article, Nancy Board, MSW, offers a first person account of her experience as the clinical services manager for Washington State EAP and the efforts she made to ensure that EAP services were more inclusive for BIPOC. Ms. Board provides a blueprint to employers and EAP service providers on how they can actively become more anti-racist in their organization. Ms. Board states "As a result of our efforts, the WA State EAP moved from a 12% non-white provider network in 2018 to 32% in 2020 with an intentional, purposeful, more inclusive approach. Additionally, many providers work across the gender spectrum and are allies to or identify as LBGTQIA. Having greater diversity across our network allows us to better serve our customers and clients, especially BIPOC during times of great civil unrest, racially motivated violence and deepening trauma."