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The United Health Foundation is pleased to release America's Health Rankings' first brief in our “Health Equity in Focus” series, which builds on previous reports and highlights mental and behavioral health disparities by race/ethnicity, age, gender, disability status and sexual orientation.
The Mental and Behavioral Health Data Brief analyzed 15 measures and five subpopulations using data from four national public health surveys. It measures the breadth, depth and persistence of key mental and behavioral health disparities at the national level among both adults and youth, aiming to provide objective data that advocates, community leaders and policymakers can use to better understand challenges facing Americans today.
In this brief, mental health includes a person’s emotional, psychological and social well-being while behavioral health has more to do with the specific actions people take and how they can be influenced by an individual’s mental health. These conditions can affect a person’s thoughts, feelings, moods and behaviors.
Key insights from the brief include the following:
- Mental and behavioral health disparities differed significantly by race/ethnicity among both adults and youth, with differences as great as 14 times greater when comparing racial/ethnic groups.
- Significant mental and behavioral health disparities existed for both adults and youth with disabilities relative to their peers without disabilities.
- Adults who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB) faced wide disparities across mental health and behavioral health challenges when compared to heterosexual adults. They also faced higher levels of unmet mental health needs.
- Young adults (18-25 years of age) faced the highest prevalence of behavioral and mental health concerns across all adult age groups, and were most likely to report unmet mental health needs, substance use disorder and illicit drug use.
- Consistent with previous America’s Health Rankings’ reports, notable disparities in mental and behavioral health measures existed by gender. Mental health challenges tended to be more prevalent among females, while males had higher rates of behavioral health challenges.