20% of U.S. Adults Had Psych Disorder 2009 // 38% (of those 20%) Got Treatment // 8% of Youths Had Major Depression //Women Had More MH Issues

This week, in western NC, one of the main psychiatric nurse practitioners has advised her patients that she has to 'switch companies' (thus, creating chaos re: treatment) as she is not able to 'take care of herself' re: the lack of benefits from Appalachian Counseling which took over the Balsam Center contract which provides medication for thousands of consumers in western NC.

Earlier this week, a Community Support Services worker, Peggy Anderson, was buried; she was in her 50's and a fine woman, helpful and courteous to all. She had been complaining about a 'pain in my throat' and the private mental health care company which employed her did not/ could not provide health insurance. She died of cancer.

Statistics gathered by federal agencies (SAMHSA:
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
Office of Applied Studies) for 2009 indicate the following grim statistics regarding mental health treatment, which , in a nutshell, indicates that one-fifth of the American population had mental health needs last year but less than 40% received any treatment of that.

http://oas.samhsa.gov/NSDUH/2k9NSDUH/MH/2K9MHResults.pdf

" Highlights
• In 2009, there were an estimated 45.1 million adults aged 18 or older in the United States
with any mental illness in the past year. This represents 19.9 percent of all adults in this
country. Among adults aged 18 or older in 2009, the percentage having serious mental illness
(SMI) in the past year was 4.8 percent (11.0 million adults).

• Women aged 18 or older were more likely than men aged 18 or older to have past year any
mental illness (23.8 vs. 15.6 percent) and SMI (6.4 vs. 3.2 percent)....."