Update … RELATED? “USA Today leads with the escalating divorce rate in the military. It was up 78 percent last year and at more than three times the 2000 rate.” (Slate)
One-quarter of all Americans met the criteria for having a mental illness within the past year, and fully a quarter of those had a “serious” disorder that significantly disrupted their ability to function day-to-day, according to the largest and most-detailed survey of the nation’s mental health, published yesterday.
Although parallel studies in 27 other countries are not yet complete, the new numbers suggest that the United States is poised to rank No. 1 for mental illness globally, researchers said.
“We lead the world in a lot of good things, but we’re also leaders in this one particular domain that we’d rather not be,” said Ronald Kessler, the Harvard professor of health-care policy who led the effort. … (Seattle Times)
NEW: Columbia Journalism Review questions the study’s funding.
of that particular club. I’ve had depression my whole adult life…sometimes it deepens, sometimes it lifts. I’ll be prone to it forever as will my children. I hope society treats us better as we learn more about it.
I had a friend that did not suffer from depression until he was in graduate school. He was under a lot of stress working on his thesis and his wife was just awful. I won’t go into the details of what she did but I can’t help but think that is what triggered it. He became clinically depressed and spent 30 days in the hospital for treatment. His insurance only allowed him to stay 30 days so they released him before he was completely over it. Needless to say, he had to go back in. The good news is that he is doing much better now and I learned alot about mental illness. I hope you are doing well and wish you all the best.
Fully half of Americans qualify as sociopaths by voting Republican in the 2004 election.
Not hard to believe. Particularly looking at the pie fight at the DKos Corral the last day or so.
Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.
I love to gloat.
Seriously, with no national health care, the draft poised like an axe, Iraq, and Bush/Cheney in the White House, I think most American people are under a great strain right now.
HAHAHAHA!!!!1!
Look around at three of your friends.
If they’re normal . . . you’re it!
His Surgeon General…pardon me, I’m forgetting his name at the moment…but he stated at that time (1998 or 1999) that 1 in 5 Americans were experiencing mental health issues…and that on any given year, there are 50 Million (!!!) Americans experiencing depression. So now the numbers are getting worse, it appears. As a psychologist, this saddens me tremendously…and it also angers me, because I can’t help but feel that there is a strong connection between this increase in illness and the corresponding cuts in mental health funding (and subsidized housing funding, and substance abuse funding, and, and, and…). The strain of being a poor person in America today…and the cuts States are making to treatment funds, because of the Bush deficit and underfunding of needed services.
Hey, this is old news. It was blogged about a month or two ago. What have you been doing, popping pills? </snark>
Oh, I get it. News that stays news. Hey, wait a second. Wasn’t that supposed to be poetry?
I can’t help but think that Americans live to work, not work to live. We may pay higher taxes in Germany but there is a lot to show for it. We also get at least 5 weeks of vacation, healthcare, playgrounds everywhere for the children, bicycle paths along all of the roads, etc. We have had some tax cuts the past several years to try to get the economy moving but it didn’t work. As a matter of fact, we now have to make a co-payment of 10 euros every quarter when we visit the doctor (not a big deal for me but many of the Germans are mad) and I am now getting nickled and dimed to death on my children’s Kindergarten. Since they are handicapped and have to travel far to their Kindergarten, we had taxi service at no cost. Now, we need to show that we either work and can’t drive them, must travel over 1 hour one way or other reason. I also have pack their brotzeit and pay for their music lessons. Many of us here are getting fed up with this tax cut especially since it hasn’t done anything for the economy but causes more stress and grief at home.
lazy Europeans?!?!
10 hour workdays and vacations we don’t have time to use builds character! Besides, only the rich can “summer” and if they have the money to do it, then they MUST be favored by God.
The Bible told me so! It’s right here–oh, wait…
/snark.
And that’s just counting the administration. <rimshot>
That makes sense. The rest of the world already thinks we’re crazy.
While I agree mental illness is a serious problem, I was just thinking “I wonder if the pharmaceutical companies paid for this study?” I went back and read the update from Columbia Journalism Review and sure enough!
Never underestimate the power of the pharmas to create new markets. Withness the Viagra explosion. The pharmas won’t be happy until we are all spending $500/month on drugs.
That said, I support mental health parity coverage for insurance plans.
One problem with ‘medicalizing’ mental illness, which is the case here in this study, is that it becomes too easy to dissociate ‘illness’ from larger societal issues which have a profound effect on us as well: stress of poverty, working long hours, hunger, effects of homelessness, lack of medical care, dealing with crime, so on. Of course, these things are depressing and difficult.
Understandably, the biological aspect is also important (one positive of ‘medicalizing’…I’m not dissing ‘medicalizing’ completely) but studies cited above really should be intrepreted more carefully.