If people are serious about cutting government costs, they must prioritize dramatically reducing social, psychological, emotional and behavioral problems by supporting community-led mental wellbeing prevention and resilience initiatives.
Mental health care in America Report 2024 found that 23 percent of adults, or nearly 60 million people, have now experienced a mental illness. More than 20 percent of young people aged 12 to 17 reported at least one depressive episode, and 15 percent experienced a serious disability.
These totals do not include the millions of Americans with unreported mental health problems.
The total cost of these problems is enormous. A paper Produced last year for the National Bureau of Economic Research said mental health problems now cost the US economy more than $280 billion annually. This is comparable to a recession every year and is equivalent to 1.7 percent of the country’s annual consumption.
Huge costs have also been noted at the state level. For example, a study in Indiana found that untreated mental health issues cost an estimated $4.2 billion in annual costs in 2019. This was 1.2 percent of that state’s annual gross domestic product and represented approximately 100,000 jobs.
Think about it. Every year, mental illness has recession-level consequences. But instead of changing policies, as governments would normally do to solve any other recession, they have simply pursued more of the same.
Today’s mental health problems impose enormous direct costs due to lost economic productivity, increased mental and physical health care treatments and human services, and impacts on the workforce. High indirect costs also result from reduced consumer spending, impacts on worker education and training, and mental health-related crimes and violence. Somehow, the burden of many of these costs falls on federal shoulders government.
For example, there have been extreme weather disasters, including forest fires and hurricanes found to directly increase the rates and costs of acute stress, post-traumatic stress disorder, and associated psychiatric comorbidities. Research also concluded that the crisis is contributing to the increased prevalence and costs of nutritional deficiencies, leading to an increase in the rates of depression, bipolar disorder and neurocognitive disorders in children.
This problem also comes with other significant but difficult to quantify costs, including the suffering caused by people with substance abuse-related mental health disorders, homelessness, and poverty in their families and communities.
Few people see it, but current mental health conditions are blocking solutions to the climate crisis. That’s because stressed and traumatized people usually retreat into a self-protective survival mode that reduces their ability to adapt to changing circumstances or embrace changes such as a shift to renewable energy.
To date, the main response of most elected bodies to mental health has been to improve treatment systems. This is important. But even with more training, there will never be enough providers to meet demand. In addition, research shows that up to 50 percent of people in need of mental health care will not participate due to fear of being stigmatized if they participate, conflicts with religious beliefs and other concerns.
Mental health care is also reactive. They treat individuals, usually one at a time, only after they experience symptoms. They do not proactively prevent problems within large populations.
This underlines that simply increasing the availability of mental health care cannot solve the problem. Prevention at the population level must become a top priority. This requires using a public health approach to mental wellbeing and resilience.
A public health approach is very different from the individual treatment model. The premise is that interacting social, economic, and environmental factors cause mental health problems, not just individual genetics or early childhood experiences.
To address the intersecting factors, broad coalitions of residents and organizations are being formed in communities that implement multiple interventions to strengthen “protective factors” – norms, practices and policies – thereby changing community culture and prioritizing healthy, safe, fair factors. and resilient perspectives and behaviors. The coalitions also work to minimize “risk factors” – characteristics that undermine well-being and resilience.
Resilience essential reading
For example, most community-led prevention initiatives help youth and adults develop connections with individuals and groups that promote prosocial thinking and behavior. These bonds minimize the social isolation and loneliness that lead to pervasive mental health problems today. They also provide residents with the mutual aid and emotional support needed during the accelerating extreme weather disasters caused by the climate crisis.
Many community-led initiatives also teach residents trauma-informed emotional self-regulation skills, help local organizations adopt practices that improve mental health, and otherwise build a local culture that promotes individual and collective mental well-being , promotes safety and resilience.
Prevention initiatives can be more cost-effective than treating or managing mental health conditions after they occur. For example, a joint analysis by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found that every dollar invested in prevention and early intervention for mental health and addiction programs results in two to ten dollars in savings through reduced productivity and prevent high healthcare costs. reducing the costs of criminal law and juvenile justice.
Research into the Communities that care The model, which hundreds of community-led coalitions have implemented across the US, found that for every dollar invested, $5.31 was returned due to the reduction of substance abuse and crime among youth.
The World Health Organization has also found that community-based mental health initiatives are cost-effective and produce good outcomes.
To reduce government costs, the current state of mental health care must be addressed. Community-led initiatives in mental health prevention and resilience building are critical to achieving this.
