Mental health and substance use disorders affect people from all walks of life and all age groups. These illnesses are common, recurrent, and sometimes serious. Mental health illnesses are treatable, and many people do recover.
Mental health impacts an individual’s ability to cope with the stressors that exist in their lives. Protective factors and healthy behaviors can help prevent the onset of mental health illnesses when living conditions and environments allow people to adopt and maintain healthy lifestyles.
However, while impressive strides have been made in the preceding decades to reduce the health burden and years of life lost to heart disease and some cancers, the population burden of poor mental health has not improved. The burden of both substance use disorders and depressive disorders has increased in the United States.
Mental health has an impact on how people relate to others, make decisions, and handle stress, which are important aspects of a healthy, successful community.
Treatment for mental health may not be equally available to all persons, especially racial and ethnic groups and members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA) communities who are underrepresented among providers.
Because the burden remains high and previous progress has been modest, addressing mental health issues that affect individuals’ health and well-being can help make significant progress toward reducing health burdens at the population level.