May is Mental Health Awareness Month. And when it comes to our mental health and wellbeing, we have an alarming trend on the rise here in the U.S. — one that is affecting each of us but especially our youth.
The data are clear: 57.8 million Americans are affected by mental illness – that’s roughly one in five adults. But new research is showing that mental illness is a crisis of young people. Indeed, 50% of all mental health problems appear by age 14 and 75% by age 24. It’s a pattern that experts are quickly working to better understand. But to do so we need more comprehensive research, improved policy, and targeted conversations across sectors that seek to find long-term, sustainable solutions.
That’s why last month two organizations I chair took action. The Tennessee State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE), a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to catalyze transformative change in Tennessee education so that all students can achieve success, and NashvilleHealth, a Nashville-based nonprofit working to improve the health and wellness of every single Nashvillian, joined forces to convene thought leaders and experts from around the nation for much-needed conversations on the worsening mental health of youth today.
“Connecting the Dots: Mental Health & Student Success in Tennessee” uniquely brought to one room the perspectives of education experts and those in community health. Together, we started key conversations focusing on timely data and research from each of these points of view as we worked toward increasing awareness of the specific mental health challenges that our schools and communities face. We began exploring the promising opportunities for intervention and improvement. And all of this with the intention to strengthen the wellbeing of our young people and future generations.
Throughout the event, it was evident that our current mental health crisis is one of the most pressing health-related challenges our state and nation face. It touches all aspects of our daily lives, including our physical, emotional, and psychological health. It affects our ability to actively engage with our family, friends, and communities and to excel in professional and educational settings. And it impacts our ability to handle the stressors that come with the technology and social media of modern times.
All of these have led to an alarming uptick in reported anxiety and depression, nationwide overdoses, and suicide. Compared to the early 2000s, rates of depression and anxiety are up by more than 50%. And the rate of suicide, a leading cause of death in the U.S., is at a record high (in December 2023 the suicide rate in the U.S. was the highest since 1941).
When it comes to building a brighter and healthier future for future generations, we have work to do. And that work needs to begin with an earlier and more deliberate focus on our youth.
A Deeper Look at the Data
Connecting the Dots was rooted in actionable and insightful data. Last year, Belmont University’s Belmont Data Collaborative (BDC) released its Project Well report, with the aim to provide a clearer picture and better understanding of mental wellbeing in Middle Tennessee and the state at large. The report – unique for its focus specifically on Tennessean mental health – found that the national average for adults self-reporting anxiety and depression was 32.4% – or about one in three adults. And that as a state, Tennessee’s rate of reported anxiety and depression ranked a shocking 3rd in the nation.
But when breaking apart these already concerning data trends by age group, the BDC found that 46.6% of 18 to 29-year-olds self-reported anxiety and depression – well above the national average and well above the 30 to 39 (39.3%) and 40 to 49 (33.9%) year-old age groups that had the second and third highest rates within our state respectively. Our young adults in Tennessee are struggling.
This is a pattern that matches national trends. The World Health Organization’s 2024 World Happiness Report, for example, ranked the U.S. outside of the top 20 happiest countries at 23rd. But, interestingly, our 60 and older population ranks in the top 10 compared to similar age groups in other countries. However, there was a large decline in reported wellbeing for Americans under 30 – which many experts attribute to rising social inequities and increased polarization (all of which can be amplified via social media usage).
And a quick look at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recently reported data reveals that these trends are unfortunately only getting worse. A 2021 survey, for example, found that 42% of high school students reportedly “experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness.” And, even more alarmingly, 22% of high school students reported having “seriously considered attempting suicide.” It’s also critical to note that a large percentage of people suffering from mental illness go without seeking treatment, namely due to cost.
Focusing On Sustainable Solutions
The data are concerning. But we should still be optimistic about our future. And bringing our school and public health communities together in a single conversation brought good news and opportunities for solutions as well.
Underscored in our discussions was the vast resilience of our youth and young adults. And one key theme emerged on what works to support each adolescent’s mental health: feeling connected. Yes, building strong bonds and relationships with friends, family, and within our communities at home and at school provides a powerful sense of connectedness. Thus our immediate call to action is to unite to provide the resources and cultivate those ecosystems that maximize opportunities for genuine connectedness. And as we continue working toward building this connectedness and developing sustainable solutions that prioritize our mental and emotional health, we should consider keeping awareness, prevention, and access top of mind.
Better awareness helps to destigmatize mental health challenges and broadens our understanding of the intersection of social risk factors and mental health. Awareness can also enable more accurate diagnosing. As Dr. Ruth Shim, a cultural psychiatry professor at the University of California Davis, shared at the event, “The symptoms of ADHD almost look identical to the symptoms of food insecurity. So we at times funnel people into the system and try to treat them with a stimulant, when in fact it could have been treated with better nutrition.”
And educational attainment has also been linked to self-reported anxiety and depression. The Project Well report, for example, found that 39.8% of adults with less than a high school diploma reported anxiety and depression, compared to 24.3% of adults with at least a bachelor’s degree.
At the same time that we work to improve our general awareness of mental health challenges, we simultaneously need to prioritize research and data that seek to better understand contributing social risk factors like nutrition, physical activity, and education. Right now, there is not a lot of research in this space. And, as we move forward, we need to continually be working to understand this health crisis in a more comprehensive way.
And for long-term, sustainable solutions, we must start looking at policy. Every day each of us makes decisions based on our environment. Our youth are doing the exact same thing. Good policy can help us improve equitable access to vital resources that provide preventative and acute mental health services in a more timely and effective way.
