Essay Sample on Mental Health America (MHA)

Introduction

The number of American adults living with mental health condition has constantly been as high as 44 million. This has remained the state in the United States since the State of Mental Health in America released their report on the same in 2015. There is only a slight decrease in the number among the adults, that is, from 18.19% to 18.07%. Similarly, there is a continuous rise in the rate at which the youths experience mental health conditions. Mental Health America (MHA) reported that it has increased from 11.93% to 12.63% among the youth with the past few years. The report also shows that the youths having MDE are those who have not received a proper treatment for their mental health condition.

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The healthcare sector is playing a considerable role in ensuring that the cases of mental health condition reduce and help in the treatment of the already existing conditions. This occurs in terms of health insurance that is issued to most Americans who now access medical when they show signs of the mental problem. According to Canady (4), the effect of healthcare reform is significant and this can as well be understood by trying to consider the number of the insured adults and the rate at which the mental health issues are prevalent among them, which has significantly recorded a great level of decrease.

In spite of the considerable measures which have been put in place to save the situation, a good number of Americans who experience mental health conditions still have many unmet needs. 120%, which translates to 9 million of the American adults are having unmet needs regarding the health requirements with regard to their individual conditions (Canady 3). There is a serious shortage of workforce regarding the necessary interventional practices towards mental health. This results from the low ratio, 1:4, of mental health providers to patients.

National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI): Prevalence of Mental Illness

43.8 million US adults constituting a portion of 18.5% of the whole population experience mental illness on yearly basis. A serious level of the mental condition is experienced by 4.0% of the whole American population every year and the impact is a substantial interference with at least one or more of the most important family activities (Colvard et al. 80). Moreover, the age bracket of 13-18 of the American youths of 21.4% is reported to be experiencing a severe mental disorder at some point at their lifetime. For the children of the age 8-15, the estimated figure is 13% experiencing the given health conditions.

Social Stats

It is estimated that 26% of the homeless American adults staying in the shelters live with serious mental conditions and an approximate of 46% of them live with severe mental illness. Besides the lives at the shelter, the conditions experienced by the individuals at the corrective measures are another major situation which is currently associated with mental health disorders. Statistics on this case reports that approximately 20% of the state prisoners and 21% of the local jail prisoners have recent histories of mental health conditions (Colvard et al.79). Furthermore, an estimate of 70% of the youth in juvenile justice systems live with at least one mental health problem, and at least 20% has a serious mental illness. However, serious interventions have not been implemented whereby only 41% of the adults in the United States with such health conditions receive mental health services on yearly basis. Statistics also reveal that mental health condition averagely starts to show up at the age of 14 while some cases tend to occur when an individual is 24 years of age. However, the symptoms do not occur immediately the problem begins to affect an individual; in most cases, it delays taking even decades before the given mental health conditions manifest.

Consequences of Lack of Treatment

Treatment is important not only to the patients suffering from mental health problems but also to the economy of the country involved. Lack of proper treatment measures sees the country spending huge sums of money every trying to solve the problem. Dropout is also another major problem among the students who suffer from special needs problem mostly at the age of 14-being unable to cope with academics. Besides, the between 18-22 remains the common stage at which the veterans die.

Works Cited

Canady, Valerie A. "MHA Annual State Of Mental Health Report Finds Youth In Crisis". Mental Health Weekly, vol 27, no. 46, 2017, pp. 3-4. Wiley, Doi:10.1002/mhw.31275.

Colvard, Michelle D. et al. "Consumer Satisfaction With National Alliance On Mental Illness Written Medicine Information". Mental Health Clinician, vol 7, no. 2, 2017, pp. 74-80. College Of Psychiatric And Neurologic Pharmacists (CPNP), Doi:10.9740/mhc.2017.03.074. Accessed 15 Dec 2018.