The Economic Burden of Mental Health Inequities in the United States Report

https://satcherinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/The-Economic-Burden-of-Mental-Health-Inequities-in-the-US-Report-Final-single-pages.V3.pdf?utm_campaign=morning_rounds&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9DQTbz9852-mREe3KwYeossbG6Uz-OMyAzJC6SThpl-J-91vTbXkQ9CDnigw3NKGPn8c3qBNArqtyMOd8mg7c1W_QL_g&_hsmi=307106714&utm_content=307106714&utm_source=hs_email The mental health crisis is driving up health care costs Twenty-five years ago, then-Surgeon General David Satcher said there was “no health without mental health.” While most analyses of soaring health care costs focus on the growing burden of chronic disease, the toll of the nation’s mental health crisis continues to climb, STAT’s Usha McFarling tells us. Costs — due to premature death, ER overutilization, and a lack of work productivity — could reach $14 trillion by 2042, or roughly $42,000 per person living in the U.S., according to new analysis that will publish today by the Meharry School of Global Health and the Deloitte Health Equity Institute. The report builds on work measuring the current toll of mental health in many marginalized racial and ethnic groups. The new analysis includes excess spending involved in providing mental health care to those with chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and HIV, conditions linked to poorer mental health. The authors call the growing mental health crisis an overlooked emergency that needs to be addressed both as a moral imperative and “for our collective prosperity.” “It is now clear,” said Daniel Dawes, the founding dean of Meharry’s School of Global Health in releasing the report, “there can be no health equity without mental health equity.”