Mental Health Tracker
The mental health tracker shows the prevalence of mental health problems and illness, patterns of treatment and service use, and cost of mental health care for children, adults and the elderly in the United States from 2000 to 2007 for the nation and 2000-2005 for 23 states (AL, CA, CT, FL, GA, IL, KY, LA, MD, MA, MI, MO, NJ, NY, NC, OH, OK, OR, PA, SC, TX, VA and WI).
Use the form on the left to find out the trends of mental health prevalence, service use and cost of mental health care by selecting an age range, scope (national or state) and the topic in which you are interested.
Prevalence of Mental Health (MH) Problems/Illness
For the Reported Mental Health Problems among all children, the tool shows the percentage of children age 4 to 17 with parent-reported mental health problem in the areas of emotions, concentration, behavior, or ability to get along with other people. For adults, it shows the percentage of people that reported a limitation due to mental health problems/illness among all adults, separately for ages 18-64 and 65+. The data are from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS).
For the Diagnosed Mental Health Prevalence, the tool shows the percentage of people with a mental health diagnosis reported at a medical encounter in prior year among all people in each age group (children, age 18-64 and 65+). The data are from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS).
Patterns of Treatment
For the Percentage of Office-based Mental Health Specialty Visits, the tool shows the percentage of office-based specialty visits (psychiatry) among all the physician visits for mental health services. The data are from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS), National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS), and the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS).
For the Percentage of People with a Mental Health Prescription, the tool shows the percentage of people with a mental health prescription among all people in each age group (children aged 4-17, adults aged 18-64, and older adults, aged 65+). The data are from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS).
Cost of Treatment
For the Percent Mental Health Share of Total Health Spending, the tool shows mental health spending for people with a mental health diagnosis as a share (percentage) of total health spending. For the Percent Mental Health Out-of-Pocket Share of Total Mental Health Spending, the tool shows mental health out-of-pocket spending with a mental health diagnosis as a share (percentage) of total mental health spending. The data are from Medical Expenditure Panel Study (MEPS) and only national data are available.
Please also see the Mental Health Chartbook for more comprehensive trend data.