Lubbock Regional Celebrates Mental Health Month

May 5, 2004

May is Mental Health Month in Texas and across the nation! For more than 50 years, Mental Health Month has helped improve the health and lives of millions of Americans. This year, we want even more people to know that caring for their minds as well as their bodies helps keep them productive, healthy and happy in all aspects of life: at work, at home and at school. So, we need to send our message louder than ever that Mental Health Matters: In Your Life. This is the Mental Health Month theme for this year.

Why should I care about mental health?

• Because first and foremost, mental health is something we all need! Just like physical health, mental health is very important to our existence but often ignored.
   

• Because if we do not decrease the stigma associated with mental illness, then the people who need it do not seek and receive treatment. We must get to a point where mental illnesses are discussed as openly as physical illnesses. There is no more blame or shame in schizophrenia than in diabetes.
   

• Because between 28 and 30% of the US population has a mental health disorder, substance abuse disorder or both. (USSG, 1999)
   

• Because depression is a major public health problem that affects up to 6 million American men and 12 million American women annually. (NIMH, 2003)
   

• Because treatment success rates for such disorders as depression (more than 80%), panic disorder (70-90%), and schizophrenia (60%), surpass those of other medical conditions, such as heart disease (45-50 %). (NIMH, 2002)
   

• Because 5-9% of children in the US have a serious emotional disturbance. (USSG, 1999)
   

• Because only about 21% of children in the US who need mental health services actually receive them. (AJP, Sept. 2002)
   

• Because about every 2 hours, a young person kills himself or herself. (AAS, 2002) ** Because older adults enrolled in Medicare pay 50% of outpatient mental health treatment costs, but they pay only 20% of costs associated with other medical services. (AMA, 2002)
   

• Because the highest rate of suicide for any age group (19.4 per 100,000) is among people age 85 and older. The second highest rate of suicide (17.7 per 100,000) is among those between age 75 and 84. (AAS, 2002)
   

• Because 83% of suicides by people over age 65 were by men. (CDC, 2001) ** Because workplace stress causes about 1 million US employees to miss work each day. (AIS, 2003)
   

• Because the percentage of employers who offer insurance coverage for mental illnesses dropped from 84% in 1997 to 79% in 2002. (SHRM, 2002) ** Because parents in 19 states including Texas surrendered custody of a total of nearly 13,000 children in 2001 to get their kids the mental health treatment the parents could not afford. (GAO, 2003)
   

• Because untreated and mistreated mental illness costs the US $105 billion in lost productivity and $8 billion in crime and welfare expenditures each year. A 5.5% increase in spending by businesses and government on mental health treatment could cut these costs in half. (BJP, 1998; NMHA, 2001)
   

• And because full mental health insurance parity will increase premiums by only  0.9%. (CBO, 2000)